Academia
by PallaPlease
Summary: Life and books: Jim Hawkins is at the Royal Navy Academy.  And what of the others? [Four:  Kitchen duty!  Snobby upperclassmen!  Fun with Jim!]  Minor update: apology and note.
1. Year One: Prologue

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Academia: Year One

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The Royal Navy Academy was founded in the year of OL 233, by order and generous donation of the Ra'liton family, who have long been alumni of the fine campus over the century and so years past. T'was the head of the Ra'liton line who, upon the first arrival of the infamous Nathaniel Flint, led the as of yet newly created Spacer Council in a petition to begin the first official training ground for those who would hold in highest regard the keeping of regulations and peace. Though at the time it was a small organization with a paltry force that could barely follow nine merchant ships, much less a single trading route, it had the makings of greatness in its sturdy core, and it slowly but surely grew (with much credit due to the merchant families who hired the first naval officers). 

A standard of excellence was eventually formed, taking a proud precedence over the initial beginnings in mercenary missions and a sort of dignity that was tied nervously to whether or not one would be paid. During the turbulent years when Nathaniel Flint, the Vanishing Scourge, first began his reign of anxious terror, nearly everything was dependent on wooing new customers that might pay for the gradual foundation of a true university; to achieve this aim, the achingly slow stream of what few officers could be trained was diverted entirely to managing task forces of small mercenary teams. Granted, it took some effort and quite a few embarrassing mishaps before the Royal Navy Academy found its first class of highly efficient naval practitioners. They were the first in a long line of prideful men and women of all races who struck out into the vast darkness once ruled entirely by pirates and their tradition persisted with glorious regularity.

This, of course, was before the appearance of one James Pleiades Hawkins. 

At the age of fifteen, he single-handedly broke nearly every record that had been placed into being by a countless selection of others over the hundred plus years: not only was he one of the youngest cadets to ever grace the gleaming halls, he also managed to be the one student expelled three times and accepted back in and very well might have graduated with some of the highest unprecedented honors in the academy's university had he not been, as mentioned, expelled. At several points, his grades dropped to scores that would have forever blemished the school's fine record before he dragged them back up again, only to let them plummet almost disinterestedly; it was, as his weapons instructor in fourth year infamously said, as if he could hardly give a damn if it was not something he relished every second of.

In his first year alone, for example, he irritated something close to half the academy's entire staff with his undertone of sarcasm and, on more than one occasion, he was engaged in brawls he all but started each time. It is rumored thirteen expulsions of other students were caused by his constant ability to mutter things he ought not around certain people, though it has yet to be proven.

Were he like most students, he would have graduated with the standard triad of medals – academic excellence, military excellence, and the obligatory integrity excellence – but with his constantly see-sawing grades and his tendency for subtle, mocking disrespect for elder students (a thing not to be taken lightly), this was not to be. As it was, he graduated with but one medal, that of military excellence, which was an upsetting thing taking into light his participation in the quest for Flint's treasure (explored in great detail in Delbert Doppler's account of the circumstance, On Solar Wings: The Revival of Flint_, currently in its thirtieth printing). His medal, however, was not one to scoff at: few students achieve a Silver Ranking in any medal field, much less that of military excellence (which takes into consideration all aspects of the brutal training, covering a range of twenty-one fields of military perfection)._

Unfortunately, his accomplishments did little by way of impressing certain upper classmen, most notably being that of Ra'liton's descendent, Himu, one of the finest students academically to ever grace the school's hallowed corridors. If anything, his frequent verbal skirmishes (and physical run-ins with Miss Himu's elder brother) with her have become the stuff of legend, as they brought to light traits in both people the teachers had not yet paid mind to. Few instructors had ever seen the self-centered nature of Himu, not had they seen James' tendency for striking the truth in his own painfully cruel way with speech. They, to put it simply, brought out the worst in one another.

As mortal creatures, we must first see the worst before we can strive for the best, so perhaps it was not a total loss that the impending lawsuits, visits to infirmaries, and blindingly enraged elder brothers were of exasperating frequency.

Xats Holiban (Dean of Vehicular Department)

Royal Navy Academy: Class of OL 345 (as compiled by Xats Holiban)

Fifth Revision – Ra'liton Publishing Edition OL 354

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Somehow, someway, it was not entirely what Jim had expected from what Amelia had, with her usual succinctly deadpan manner of speaking, painted the academy out to be, and he had yet to decide whether or not that was a good thing as he shifted the worn sole of his tired boot over the glossy walkway leading to the front. Dubiously studying the several other walkways glistening ivory and gold was doing very little by way of helping him actually move from the same spot he had been standing at for the past five minutes, and he cleared his throat, eyeing the gleaming building with one eye narrowed slightly more than its partner. He reached down without taking his eyes away, waving absently toward the loose string of his bag and catching it with his ragged fingernail after a moment of effort, and he yanked his bag up to cast the heavy weight over his shoulder. "Wow," he muttered in spite of his own stern internal lecture to not be overwhelmed by the spacious brightness. "That's…really shiny," and he wondered if it was possible he had been taken over by some form of brain-leeching creature.

"But really," he heard B.E.N. saying insistently to Morph, who was happily flitting from shape to shape, adopting an alarmingly realistic miniature Scroop before abandoning it for the blander one of a large fruit, "if there's herbivores and omnivores and carnivores, what am I? Maybe I'm a vegetarian, except, wait, I don't eat vegetables, so am I an oilvore? Or what about gasavore? A reservoir! No, wait, that's, hn, doesn't make sense." As he watched the robot with an amused expression, smiling lopsidedly and shaking his head, he waved the pink blob over to his shoulder, the spritzing creature coming happily to rest on the aged olive cloth.

Nearly simultaneously, the robot began making a sniffling noise, the gridded eyes flickering in a second's passage to narrow slits, and it hugged its gangly arms to its loosely hinged mouth, making an odd sort of wailing sound that made the boy decidedly nervous. "Oh, Jim," B.E.N. said in a comically saddened voice, and the mentioned lad scratched unassumingly at his dark hair, eyes nervously flicking from one side to the other.

"Geez, Ben, I'll miss you, too," he said lowly, almost hissing for fear one of the thronging students around him would notice the emotionally dysfunctional robot's approaching hysterics. "Could you please not jump me or anything? And say bye to Mom for me again." Quickly, despite the flashing guilt in his mind, he vanished into the crowd, large bag thumping painfully along his spine as Morph gleefully turned into a heavy rock. Behind him he could readily hear B.E.N. weeping loudly before, with characteristic panache, it yelled loudly, excited, over some unfortunate creature it found indescribably intriguing.

Reaching a hand up, he ran his calloused palm over the smooth gel of Morph and the creature made a trilling sound in earnest reply, bringing a quirky smile to his face as he tossed his other shoulder up, sending the thin strap of his bag into a more secure position near his collar. "We'll be fine," he said. "It's just like on the RLS _Legacy, _only," he broke off hesitantly, not willing yet to broke the tender subject of the surrogate father gained and lost, and merely settled for smiling quietly, rubbing what he assumed was the flamboyant blob's chin with his rough palm. "Well," he continued for lack of anything else to say.

Morph agreed punctually with a chirping cascade of noise and it swirled, tiny bubbles left in its wake, around the tight knots of his ponytail before adopting a tight wind around the coarse fluff of chocolate hair at the end. "Hold on, then," Jim added with a slowly growing grin that fairly reeked cockiness, and he lowered his body, adjusting his center of gravity for all of two seconds as a few of the other walking students moved unconsciously away from him.

Shoving his feet hard against the sidewalk, the pads of his toes spreading out in the round mouth of his boots, he sprinted, heavily, through the ever-swelling crowd, bag smacking rhythmically along his back. A clear laugh bubbled from his chest and he ducked a startled, burly arm one of the upper classmen was holding out for the sake of a petite girl, dodging around a large group of gossiping girls and slipping over the shined surface. He smoothly collapsed into an admirable position, one leg bent up and the other stretched out to aid his unexpected process of sliding over the polished stone; Morph was making giddy shrieking sounds from where it had wrapped in a deathly tight grip about his ponytail.

"That was fun and interesting," he said in his subdued, adolescent voice, arching his arms back to coax the dizzy blob into his waiting hands. The skin of his lean arms was revealed by his short-sleeves and he flickered his green eyes to their corners, as if to peer at the hot pink alien whenever he managed to tease it away from his tugging hair. "C'mon, Morph, we're taking up space." After a moment of older teenagers from varying races passing him, giggling behind their hands and taking in obnoxious whispers amongst one another, he tucked Morph into the deep pocket of his pants, nervously judging the faces around him.

A fractionally sullen mood took hold of his chest with a surprising speed and he shifted his bag, lowering his head to stare at the ground as he shuffled forward, vanishing amidst the gaudy brightness of the uniforms all others seemed to be already wearing. He tried to remember why this had seemed like such a brilliant idea, and blamed it squarely on that rushing high that had quickly followed the knowledge that he was a hero of sorts, knowing he had found someone who could be a father to him and finding he was someone, even if he still did not know precisely who that someone was. Thinking on it as he studied the ground, he kicked his heel hard over the carefully hewn stone and lifted his head proudly, jutting his chin into the air as he grinned a cocky twist of his lips for all to see.

It did not matter yet if he would regret the order and punctuality of a naval academy, of the structured environment everyone lauded about, and he knew he stood out from everyone else in their pressed uniforms and rigid haircuts; he found he enjoyed seeing eyes turning to look curiously at the gangly newcomer that was Jim Hawkins.

And that was how it was going to be.

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Feedback would be very appreciated (especially considering this is my first _Treasure Planet _fanfic and reviews are the only barometer I have). Enjoy the prologue

Edited 05/09/2003: Just a very silly spelling error.

Edited 05/19/2003: Another spelling error! Geez! ;]


	2. Year One: First

**Academia: **Year One

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                _"If I may say so, that is a horribly pitiful excuse for a pirate you lot chose for captain.  I mean that in the kindest way, of course, but in the future, do choose one of a slightly more up-to-par nature, will you?  While I by all means understand being shot in the leg is somewhat traumatic in most creatures, I dare say it is quite mortifying in a pirate of any sort."_

Captain Amelia Doppler

OL 349

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                "Do you mind?" she snapped, irritated as she swept over the deck, back stiffly held upright and gleaming feline eyes narrowed with a great deal of warning.  The man entangled with the ropes he was meant to resolutely tie about the main mast gave her a guilty expression, his fingers turning a slightly unhealthy shade of violet that spoke grandly of the state of his blood circulation to the appendages, and she paused before him, holding her arms at her back.  Raising one quelling eyebrow, every inch of her body held in perfect control that she would reveal no weakness, she stated calmly, "I do believe the object of tying the sails is not to knot the ropes tightly around your own self instead of the mast so provided at your fore, Mister Diggins.  I would have expected you to be a bit more adept at ship maintenance considering it was what you had so loudly advertised as being your," she paused, thinking, and added, "meal ticket, I believe you said.  Now untie them from your wrists promptly and do it correctly."

                With that said, Captain Amelia turned sharply on her heel, the formal clicks of her feminine boots striking the deck with a rhythmic tapping, and she tilted her carefully folded tri-corner hat to the wondering face of the RLS _Legacy_'s unexpected guest.  "Missus Hawkins," she began primly, addressing the woman with pale brown hair knotted expertly in back into a motherly bun, "I trust the good Doctor Doppler showed you to your quarters as I requested?"  Her sharp gaze flitted from the woman dressed in a simple cotton gown, hand flying up to touch the new silken cap drawn tight about her bun; Amelia inclined her head approvingly to the bespectacled canine trudging down the left stairwell with two arms laden heavily with books in various states of disarray.  

                "Oh, yes, Delbert showed me to my cabin, Captain," the older woman replied with a smile, hands smoothing over the flounced skirt cast over the thin hoops underneath, "and it's very lovely."  She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, ducking her face just a bit, almost shyly, and for a moment Amelia was thrown off-balance by the eerily similar gesture, seeing where Jim had inherited at least one of his occasional habits.  "When will we get to the port at the academy, do you know?"

                "Just a manner of days, Sarah," Doppler said cheerily, turning his eyes down to peer through his glasses at the books, muttering under his breath as he joggled the tomes around, attempting to organize them in his arms.  "It won't be long at all until we can see ol' Jim again, never fear," he continued, wrinkling his nose briefly at an undesirable smell from somewhere in the galley.  "I certainly hope that isn't the cook I smell," he commented almost miserably.

                A twitching smile flashed into coy existence on Amelia's thin, ruby-painted lips, and she spoke in her usual quick voice, "I myself certainly hope you have learned not to expect the finest accommodations on board, Doctor Doppler, as I doubt you will otherwise appreciate the efforts our new cook has begun to provide hale meals for us all.  If you will excuse me," she inclined her head again as Sarah curtsied in a hasty, polite dip, "I must depart for my stateroom to file some taxing paperwork those imbeciles in higher ranks insist I must complete."

                Being closest to the stateroom, Doppler managed to bustle up the stairwell, a strained look on his face as he fought to keep the books balanced and yet reach the elegantly simplistic door whilst Amelia gracefully ascended the same wooden steps with agile knocks of her heels along the boards.  He clutched the books to his chest, peering just around the sharp corners, and fumbled for the door's latch, tugging it open precisely at the moment the slender captain reached it.  "Captain," he attempted a smile.

                "That's very kind of you, Doctor," she smiled pleasantly before swooping in.  "Completely unnecessary and perhaps dangerous to your health if you don't take care those books stay put, but kind nonetheless."  This having been made clear, she punctually vanished into her stateroom, tugging the heavy door shut at her back, and the noisy tumblers of the lock geared into customary position.

                "She is very bewildering," Doppler admitted to Sarah as he clomped back down the stairs carefully, gratefully allowing her the privilege of laughingly taking several tomes from his teetering stack.  "I don't know what to make of her: she's biting, then she's bitingly romantic, and then she's just biting again."

                "It's a little something called woman, Delbert," Sarah explained gently, clutching her recently adopted books in a firm grip, lips pulling easily into the faint laugh lines wrinkling her lower cheeks.  "You're sleeping in the main loft below, right?"

-

                Amelia frowned minutely to herself, elegant claws picking with crafty expertise at a thick piece of parchment wedge between much thinner sheets regaling her with the boring exploits of accountancy and financial obligations, and she pulled it free.  Setting it aside, she flipped swiftly through the remaining expense sheets and lumped them together collectively, edging the paper into an even pile that she pushed to the side along her carefully maintained desk.  "Now what are you, pray tell?" she murmured, lifting the parchment and standing from her low set chair, tapping one honed claw to her lower lip as she took a few thoughtful steps near the arched bay windows.  

                "Formal heading, quite foppish and unneeded," she remarked to the air, flickering her eyes at great speed down the scripted handwriting presented on the stiff paper, "and I dare say they grow a bit more arrogant each day."  Nearly fully down the page, she paused, eyes widening briefly before narrowing with consideration.  "My, my – pirates, they say?  How very," she sighed, sending the paper spiraling to her small trash-bin with a twist of her wrist, "unsurprising."

                Returning to her desk, she sunk gracefully into her chair and began once more flipping through the papers she pulled to herself.

---

                He stood in the vast stretching hall that was the grand entrance, an oasis of dark shades in the ebbing and swelling sea of brightly dressed students that would be his peers swerving around him, jostling his shoulder, and vanishing into one of the many corridors that formed a spider web from the hub he waited in.  In hindsight, which apparently was twenty-twenty like his mother had frequently gritted after certain run-ins with the police he had few fond feelings for, it might have been helpful for him to find out where, exactly, he needed to go; he assumed the young adults surrounding him in pantheons of movement were headed for their various apartments, what with the main sun outside twirling close to the horizon, and he shifted, bag rough along the base of his spine.

                "Well, Morph," he started with more bravado in his voice than the sardonic self-disapproval he was currently indulging in, "any ideas?"  The blob made a completely unhelpful warbling sound that was easily lost in the din of older students greeting each other happily, and Jim rolled his eyes with a snort.  "Gee, thanks, Morph."  Rocking up on his toes, he let his heels smack back on the polished stone of the tiled entrance antechamber, squeaking his boots just a bit over the surprisingly sticky surface, and he reached up to scratch the back of his head with a burst of air from his lips.  He picked at the tightly bound knobs in his ponytail, scratching blunt fingernails over the knotted string keeping his dark hair in place, and shifted his weight as Morph proceeded to creep out of his pocket, then burst with a series of high-pitched chirps and trills out into plain view.

                "Morph!" he began loudly, startled, catching himself before he could even finish the single syllable, lowering his voice into a pointed hiss as he clapped his hands toward the pink blob.  If anything, his actions only served to cheerfully amuse the small, animalistic creature, and he bit back a swear he had picked up from the dubious crew of the _Legacy_, turning his head to the side and working back and forth in as inconspicuous a manner as he could.  "Morph," he hissed again, focusing on a distant group of obnoxiously tall aliens preening in the dark blue uniforms that were those of fifth years.  Taking a casual swipe at the blob without actually looking, he quickly returned to watching his arguable pet, taking curt, short swings at it in an attempt to regain control of the situation.  "This isn't funny, Morph, I don't know if you're even allowed here."  He swung a little desperately at the giggling creature and somehow managed to quite forcefully clamp his hands around it; a swell of relief was promptly executed by the bright pink creature wriggling through his fingers in bubbling drips, and he groaned, nearly convinced to just hang it all.  

                Morph, never one to appear remotely guilty over anything, swooped across his cheek in a manner that might very well have been apologetically had it not been for the bright smile it gave him, and he sighed grievously, reaching up to poke it affectionately.  "C'mon, Morph," he said, careful that his voice was pitched low enough to not be picked up too easily by the swirling crowd, "just get back in my pocket, okay?  It's better to be safe than sorry, you know."  The small, gelatinous creature, ever shifting in design, reluctantly granted him reprieve, the game ending far too soon for it, and dove into his cupped hands, allowing him way to close them gently around Morph and place it again in his pocket.

                "So," he said for his own benefit, shouldering his bag a little more comfortably, "all I need to do is find out where the head dean's office is."  Nodding absently as though the motion might help him in some way find the room, he tapped his palm over his trousers and shrugged, moving forward deftly, elbowing and squeezing through an uncomfortable press of loudly gabbing individuals.  He winced at a particularly high shriek of laughter near his ear and, after hastily moving out of reach, laughed himself, rubbing his hand over his ear as he glanced across the other half of the gleaming chamber.

                Standing directly across the way, only partially obscured by the few students who dared cross the line from residential to academic region, was a wide set of double doors reaching nearly from tiled ceiling to polished floor, a thin line of dark gold bordering the ominously closed doors.  It was, like most of the architecture in the academy he had thus far seen, which was admittedly not a great deal, remarkably elegant in design and somehow seemed completely inappropriate while grand.  In welcome addition, looping cursive above the doorframe suggested in stately letters reading _Official_ that it was more than likely where he would find the desired place.

Jim shifted, turning to glance with relative curiosity at the various age groups clearly ignoring the almost vacant other half of the antechamber, and shrugged again, knocking his boots on the floor and feeling mild discomfort where his feet had begun to outgrow the buckled leather.  "Whatever," he said in a far brighter tone than he would have a few months ago, and he crossed the floor easily, valiantly ignoring the cheerful trilling cricket noises Morph was making though his nose wrinkled with a suppressed laugh.  Pausing, he tapped one of his legs harder to the floor and was rewarded with a fresh spout of muffled giggles from Morph, inspiring him to take more forceful steps with a slew of nearly inaudible Morph giggles, as there was no other way to call them. 

"Hey!  You, you!"  interjected a robotic voice with a haughty undercurrent of superiority.  "The boy!"

Though he had the feeling the robot was addressing him, he did allow himself a moment to wonder how effective that cry would be were he still in the milling crowd thankfully at his back, but he squashed the thought before it could manifest itself as words he would blurt without review.  Turning, he smiled at the squat, blocky robot that whirred over the floor with a loud exclamation of whizzing gears and dull, clinking mechanisms in its heavy body.  "Me?" he thought to clarify, asking it as politely as he could, pointing to himself.

"James Hawkins," the robot intoned in a no-nonsense voice he had previously believed only Doppler, for whom it was never quite as effective, could achieve, "I am to escort you to Mister Rout's office immediately for orientation and uniform."

"Oh, thanks," he answered, gripping the strap of his bag in one hand as he gestured with the thumb of his other at the double doors, "but I was already heading there.  I don't want to be any trouble," he broke off.  The robot had voicelessly clamped a rather firm grip around his wrist, the rubber pads lining the steadily squeezing metal providing at least some comfort, and he asked, cautiously, "Did I do something?"

"Please follow me," the robot ignored his last query, the wheels beneath its body chugging rhythmically toward the glittering doors as Jim plodded after, eyebrows raised just a bit in surprise.  "Mister Rout has been expecting you for the past week," it continued in explanation, briskly moving through the doorway, as the doors swung inward with no trace of having been pushed, pulled, or jostled in any way.

"My mom," he replied, aware of how feeble it sounded, "sent the reply that I would be coming today about two weeks ago."

"Quite," came the robot's answer, and then he was jerked forward at an uncomfortable speed, bag smacking painfully along his back as the machine led him through a variety of twisting corridors, always humming its gears in a pleasantly calm style.  After a minute or so of this, as Jim tried to keep his bag from slipping to the floor and being lost to him for what would probably be forever, what with the seemingly never-ending halls, Morph squealing and dodging out of his pocket to weave into his hair again, the robot brought him to a standstill outside a plain door.  Situated at the end of this particular hall, it was a simple wooden door, but for the golden plate screwed into place on the glazed boards informing him kindly that he was indeed at the office of Isaac Rout, Head Dean.

                "Um," he started, quickly lifting his hands to paw at his mussed hair, rubbing tousled strands down from the wind-tossed aesthetic he had gained, "thanks."  Struck with a worrying thought, he hurriedly felt along the tight weave of his ponytail, fingertips finding the familiar gooey, yet not sticky, texture that was Morph; the pink creature extended a slippery tendril in weary assurance and slowly dribbled free of his dark hair, splattering on the back of his neck and causing him to jump slightly, face contorting as the entirety of Morph conglomerated at the base of his neck and then swished into his shirt, pulling out through his sleeve.  "I was worried about you, Morph," he mock-scolded and it made an uncharacteristically unhappy sound before sliding back into his pocket where it seemed the poor thing wanted to rest.

                "Name, place of origin, year," the robot droned in recitation, studiously paying little heed to the alien currently residing in his pocket.  It turned the silver doorknob on the carefully glazed door and pushed it open an inch or two with ease, whirring past him and down the hall as he stared after it, absently sticking his hand in his pocket and tickling an exhausted Morph.

                "Well, let's go," he murmured, creaking the door open and stepping into the room a bit more tentatively than he would have preferred to.  After all, he was supposed to be in charge of his own destiny and whatnot, if he remembered correctly, and blast anyone who said otherwise.

                Head Dean Isaac Rout, however, was a very, very massive Arkulian, which was something of a peculiar statement to make, as Arkulians were notoriously large and just as infamous for their notably unpleasant natures.  As for whether or not the constant accompanying stench of dried fish had anything to do with it none had gathered enough courage to venture before.

                Smiling politely and scrunching up every strand of self-control he had to keep from showing any visible sign of discomfort, the boy managed to speak clearly, wrinkling his nose just slightly, "James Hawkins, sir."  _Always use your proper Christian name_, his mother had reminded him before sending him ahead of her on the RLS _Victory_, _and for heaven's sake, Jim, try to address everyone as sir or ma'am.  _He did know it would take some time for her, much less most of the people he had known, to get used to the change from juvenile delinquent to something a little closer to respectable, and he was going to do his best to do it right.  His nose twitched and the smile grew just a bit strained.  "I'm from Montressor and I'll be a first-year student."  After a moment, he added quickly, hoping for recovery, "Sir."  

Wincing a little, Jim picked aimlessly at his wrist, waiting in the uncomfortable quiet of the room as the immense dean shuffled a few papers studiously, peering through cut spectacles tied about his neck with a delicate gold chain.  Finally, the dean took mind to glance up at his new charge, watching him for several seconds before clucking his tongue in a manner that was both irritating and guilty.  With stern, slow movements, he stacked the papers together, thumping the edges gently on the cluttered desk to arrange them into a form of synchronicity and order.

The portly Arkulian studied him gravely over his half-moon glasses behind the massive shelter of his glossed desk, double mouth tugged into a severe line that did little to reassure Jim's slightly apprehensive feelings, and Rout sighed a deep, blubbering exhale of utter long-suffering weariness.  "I hope you do understand, James, that we try to discourage students from signing up at such a young age, much less as late in the Empirical Year as your mother did," he began in the same grave manner.  He lifted several carefully separated papers from his desk and effortlessly filed them together, dropping the gathering into a crisp manila folder he whipped out of what seemed the air alone.  He lowered his flabby head, dark, beady eyes glinting with what seemed to be warning as he handed, rings glimmering where they rested on his rolled fingers, the manila folder to Jim.

He took it carefully, twisting it about to face him and twirling it up in a few spirals between his fingers to flip it open, and he began thumbing through the thin stack of paper as the Head Dean continued with a stern-sounding voice.  "But as Captain Amelia herself sent a rather strong recommendation for your entry, and taking into account the equally strong word-of-mouth involving the Treasure Planet, we found we had little choice but to add you to the first year roster."  A sour expression on the Arkulian's face squarely informed him that the man had by no means ever believed in the tale of Flint's trove.  

"Now, as we were unable, due to your late registration, to send you a list of required reading material, dress code, and a class list, I'm afraid you must peruse these sheets tonight.  Fortunately for you, all of the first year quarters have been claimed, so you will be bunking with the third years, one of whom is surely a packrat and will be able to supply you with some books."  Leaning his chair back and straining to reach something obscured by his desk, he caused Jim to look up from his skimming and slowly bend his head to the side, as if to see what it was the elder man was trying to grab.  The desk, however, was quite obviously solid and so he raised his head again, tossing it briefly to free one of his long, trailing bangs from his large green eyes.

"This," came the muffled voice as the man made a pleased sound and rocked up into his previous sitting position, one pudgy hand raising to smooth an imperceptible wrinkle on his suit, "will be your uniform.  All first years are required to dress in the black uniform provided by the school and our fine retail establishments."  He gently rested a much larger stack on the end of the desk, at least a week's worth of uniforms presented to the boy, and he tapped a fingertip firmly on the top jerkin, a glint appearing in his eyes that warned of a coming lecture.

"I can clean my own clothes," Jim cut him off, flipping the manila folder shut and reaching over to stuff it into his quickly opened bag.  In his pocket, Morph made a silent, gooey sort of bubble and he grimaced before he could stop the reflex at the unpleasant feel, "I'm not going to contaminate anything, or whatever it is you guys are afraid of."  He offered a charming smile, the corner of it strained as Morph, suitably, morphed into something sharp and not very gentle to the touch.

"Indeed," said the head dean slowly, and he lifted a long-nailed thumb to tap his spectacles a bit farther up the flat bridge of his nose.  "In any case, there are a few things we need to address right now so far as dress code, which you seem to be breaking just by walking into our very establishment."  Jim noted with a cold little frown that the man was still speaking as though the young man was neither welcome nor appreciated, and as though the university was the dean's alone.  "First of all, earrings are strictly prohibited when worn by male students, boots of a non-standard material and worn quality are not to be worn on the campus, your clothes, as previously mentioned, must be changed, and as for your hair," Rout paused, smiling a quaint, fake smile.  "Well, I'm sure you know what to do about your hair."

Somewhat lost and unsure in spite of his dislike, Jim felt the back of his head at the ponytail bunching together the dark strands, hoping it was something other than what it seemed to be by the Arkulian's speech.

"In any case," Rout pressed on, his voice taking a bored, twining tone to it, "you will begin the school year with the other students tomorrow.  Curfew is ten each night and you will be waking at four in the morn for an hour of physical exercises before going to the nine classes outlined in your schedule sheet."

"Nine?" Jim blurted in that split second between thought and wisdom, a grant to the unspoken laws determining that all should speak before thinking once in awhile.

Rout studied him again, for a few painful seconds, and finally said, "Yes, James, nine classes.  You are supposed to have been aware of the schedule we hold in precious regard here, and I can guarantee I run a stiff ship, if you will pardon the obvious pun.  One of the robots will guide you to your room and it will be up to you to remember the way.  Dormitories are across the main courtyard, where physical exercises are held.  Please, do leave now."

Jim obeyed, biting his tongue with a remembrance of his mother and his own personal vows to keep back something he would certainly regret, and nodded his head, shuffling out the door with his bag bouncing along his back once every quick step.  Reaching back with fumbling fingers, he closed the door and was swamped with a rush of affection and annoyance as Morph peeked out of his pocket, swirling up to burble unintelligible things.

"A good ev'ning to you, too, Mister Rout," he muttered and Morph, feeling the need to comfort its much larger friend, immediately popped into an identical, miniaturized version of Jim.

"Good ev'ning, good ev'ning!" it cheered.

---

I really, really appreciate feedback (and I know I desperately need constructive criticism).  Many thanks, by the way, to Team Bonet for reviewing (I'm working on my Jim characterization and Lord knows I need more practice).  Flattered! 

Disclaimer, as I forgot previously: I own naught but my dubiously written original characters and whatever story ideas I come up with that are somewhat original.  Should I beg forgiveness?

Edited 05/14/03: Spelling mistake, again.  Despite the fact that I had official source after official source _in my hands,_ I still managed to misspell Delbert's name.  Apparently, I reek oblivious joy.  ;]  Yay noodles!


	3. Year One: Second

**Academia:** Year One

--

                _Traditionally, there are five legitimate school years at the Royal Navy Academy (derived from the Interstellar Academies, which host a various mixture of military specialties): the first three, upon completion, grant a high enough status for one to have the rank of first mate on most hired ships, and a second-in-command on military vessels.  To stay on for the standard fourth year presents one the honor of a captain's rank, and is perhaps the most hands-on year (the earlier years focus more on the written knowledge, military history, physics and chemistry, complex mathematics, and so forth, though each year has some form of physical exercise; each summer, a ship training of some sort is offered).  The fifth year, however, is one that diminishes the capability of the individual to be captain of a vessel, as fifth year graduates usually become instructors, politicians, or otherwise involved with paperwork.  Perhaps of interest to note is that most fifth year graduates are also the upper-class percentage, small as it is._

_                As a yearling once said famously, "Those snot-nosed bastards are full of crap."_

_                Admiral Bluedwarf was not impressed and the yearling promptly fell out of sight._

Compiled by Ensign Althea Hamilton

A Brief Overview of the Academies in Modern Culture  (circa OL 299) 

Independent publisher (currently out of print)

--

                The swirling guide light, a tiny sphere of exact measurements and carefully attached bits of metal, froze in place before one of the identical doors stretching the length of the hall it had led him to situated in the juniors' dormitories, a brightly lit tunnel of metal and polished stone on the ninth floor.  He paused with it, hearing Morph gurgle cheerfully near his ear, curiously swooping around his forehead to settle in an expectant bubble near his eyes.  Absently, he obliged its unintelligible request and poked it swiftly, causing it to pop noisily and giggle almost maniacally as it gathered its free falling particles together into the usual mess of pink disharmony.  "Is this it?" he asked the light hovering an inch or so above his eye level, silver nucleus surrounded by crackling haloes and splashing flashes of fluorescent rainbow shades.  Morph made a squealing noise and dove to the bag he clutched over his shoulder, wriggling and seeping through the imperceptible holes where the weave broke and connected again in the clasping pattern.  "I mean, this is my room, right?"  The light flared a deep blue and switched off automatically, leaving the naked orb patiently waiting in the air until he, not sure what to do, held a tentative hand out to it; the silenced light skittered one last red gleam and plummeted into his palm, startling him as he yanked his arm back to his body and tried to stifle the shaky rolling it was making toward his wrist.  Snapping his fingers over it, he hissed a muted exhale, surprised at its sudden discharge of final light, and he clutched the unmoving ball tightly as he turned to look at the last scrap of Morph valiantly struggling into his bag.  

                "That was weird, wasn't it, Morph?" he asked, tossing his shoulder to jostle the bag, begetting a wave of chitters and high-pitched giggles from within it.  "I knew you'd agree with me," he said loftily, smiling a little as he turned to the door, free arm pinning the bundle of clothes under his elbow, as many of the articles stuffed into his now almost overflowing bag.  "The only problem being I don't know how to even get in.  Any thoughts, you gurgling blob you?"  He turned again from the door to glance with a muffled laugh at the bag, jostling it a second time to hear, amused, Morph squeak, and an odd tickling sensation in his closed palm caught his attention, begging him to flick his fingers open and see the orb he had clasped in it.

                The orb, flecked metal of glittering silver earlier, was shifting, bolted parts of the small metal sheaths moving backwards and forwards, flattening it out and sharpening a protrusion from the miniscule light generator.  A row of uneven spikes jutted out, twirling onto their sides to form paper-thin blocks coming out of the neck, and the remnant shapes creased together into a flat handle for better grip.  "Handy," he commented monosyllabically, lifting the key to the light and grinning, already envisioning finding a way to research it or take it apart when the day came that he had no need for a guide on the massive campus.  Whether or not that day would actually come was not his worry at the moment.

                "Let's see what they've got for us, huh, Morph?" he called over his shoulder, running his hand down the slick door in search of what was apparently an invisible keyhole.  Prodding the numbers at the top of the door, he pulled his fingertips away briefly, watching as the numbers shimmered and seemed, much as the guide/key had done, to rearrange themselves into an alien representation of the dorm's number, queer circles and dots in place of the sharp angles he knew by heart.  It was not what he looked for, though, and he frowned, skidding his roughened fingers against the doorframe, seeking some slot or hole the key was meant to join with.  After a moment's pointless questing, as Morph made a questioning sound, worried in the dark swathing held within the bag's stifled confines, he paused, turning his attention back to the waiting numerals.  He tapped the head one again and it quivered, setting the chain reaction off again until the alien numerals had reset in a different style, one he remembered vaguely from the nightmarish evening of Billy Bones and the end of a chapter in his life.  It brought to mind painful things, heat and rain mixing together as his mother cried in dismay, but it also gave to him an idea, staring at the stilling numerals as his eyebrows knit together with thought.

                Raising his hand, he hesitated, then quickly tapped a finger on the second numeral, switching to the first as they began changing quickly into the next language system embedded in their immeasurable memories, and he ran his fingers at different patterns over the trio of digits: one, three, two, two, one, two, three, two, three.   Morph echoed its earlier questioning mewl, spraying forth from the bag in a wave of pale pink, splurging into itself and twirling in a dizzying display of unintentional aerial acrobatics before managing to gather together into a whole self.  Frowning, lower lip curling in with the effort, he drummed his fingers at a swifter pace, trying to outrun the continuing change as it flicked from standard to Arkulian to Mumaq, Tujin, Halibut, Cal'lr, and countless other hastening languages that sparked into slicing angles and gentle twists.  He, frustrated, smashed his thumb hard against the second digit as it wavered between a feline language and some undetermined mess, and a part of the door, a small pad directly below the numerals currently flashing a frozen tangle of indecisiveness, peeled calmly away, reversing itself for his viewing.  A chunk of the door, neatly fitted into the thin space that would hold it and the sliding arm that stretched it out, waited patiently in front of him, a thin black slot in its dead center and surrounded by nothing else.

                Jim jabbed the key into the slot and twisted, popping his wrist effectively.  In kind reply, the door immediately swung open, the arm tugging the panel back in, though it remained with the keyhole staring emptily at the hall as he pulled his key free.  The lines around it vanished, making it seem as though it were a perfectly normal part of the machinated door, and the marking numbers quickly shifted back to the standard numbers, seven-five-nine that he committed hastily to memory.  Morph hung at his shoulder and chattered happily to itself, a cacophony constructed of giggles, yawps, and some other noise he was not too sure of.

                The inside of the dormitory was far darker than the hall, the solar lights having been extinguished by the dark figure seated on one of the two low-balanced cots set on either side of the small room, and he had to blink, adjusting his eyes for the shades and darkness enveloped inside the walls.  Shifting his bag tightly around his shoulder and checking that none of the clothes he held in his arm were threatening to fall, he stepped into the room, a single footstep where his boot struck the hard floor in the midst of an empty sound.  A dull light sprang into being, soft glows coming from the walls themselves, and with each step he took toward the bare, lonely cot that was now his, the lights behind him dimmed and vanished, glowing alongside him.  "Cool," he grinned, shedding his bag at the foot of his bed, next to a pair of shined boots that were probably the ones Rout had mentioned, and dumping the uniforms over the perfectly smoothed bedspread.  An irritated snap came from his back and he paused, glancing over his shoulder with a disinterested gaze.  Jim was more than used to the condescending attitude most older students took to younger ones, recalling all too clearly the once painful hazings seniors on Montressor would invariably give to the freshmen and sophomores until one – namely Jim and a few other youths of questionable esteem – fought back.  In spite of the decisively nasty way the husky Feline seated cross-legged on the opposite cot was glaring at him, he paid as little heed to the blunt, yet still very noticeable, claws as was sanely possible and glared right back.  It would be a cold day in hell when James Hawkins backed down from an obvious challenge.

                "Solved it kinda quick, didn't'cha," the defined tiger-like creature stated coolly, dark pools of blackened obsidian studying him with disdainful recognition, and he switched his powerful gaze to the wall connected to the door, closing those perpetually scowling orbs to the world.  "Most juniors don't e'en get it 'til the fourth day and hafta wait for a professor ta open the door for 'em."

                "Really," Jim said neutrally, guiltily calling to mind his mother's hopeful words that wouldn't he just try his best to stay out of trouble until at least the third week.  "Well, I'm a fast learner."  He scratched Morph's arguable chin distractedly, cupping the small thing and holding it to his other palm for a moment for no other reason than the soothing presence of an admittedly strange friend.  "What time do we eat?" he asked, deterring from the suggestion to ask for any older textbooks.

                The tiger cracked an eye open, heaving an annoyed sigh as he swung his heavy legs over the side of his cot, white muzzle at odds with the golden yellow and shadowed black of the majority of his fur, and growled, "When the really loud bell rings, we eat."  He stretched claws out to their full, unfriendly length, producing a few inches of previously withheld jet tones streaking out between the wide fingers of each paw, and tapped a flat disk on the small desk by his bed.  Light flared into bright existence on his side of the dormitory, obscured somehow on Jim's newly adopted side, and he grunted, "Anythin' else, freshman?"  A strong dislike was thrust into the double syllables, filling them with the unexplained hatred every student seemed to feel for those who had just arrived, throwing logic, which would suggest that as they had once been first years themselves perhaps they could exercise a bit more gentility, out the proverbial window.  

                "Yeah," he said with every scrap of dignity, politeness, and slightly irritated kindness he could find in his mind.  "Dean Rout said I should ask for any old texts you might have."  The tiger had snorted as soon as he stated the name, earning the tiniest bit of respect and grudging affinity from the boy what with the short impression he had received from the man.  "If it's okay with you," he added, that bit of warmth giving him the power to make good on his personal vow to do better.

                "Get'cher schedule out," the older male suggested, twenty years of feline muscle adding an undertone of menace, which Jim easily ignored, grabbing his bag up and yanking the drawstring open.  Morph, unsure of what to make of the still hostile tiger, chattered nervously near Jim's ear, hovering and zipping around his head, trying at one point to hide behind the small beads of his self-consciously bound ponytail.  "What kinda thing is that?" the tiger queried bluntly, watching the pink shape shifter squiggle around the smaller boy's head in a chaotic tumble of equally chaotic motions.  

                "He's a morph," Jim answered with a grunt, struck by the similarity of his words to that of Silver's as he tried to pull the schedule sheet free of the folder and clothes, "and his name is the same."  The paper wrinkled out, crunched into a pathetic twist, and he winced, pulling it to the sides with his hands and trying to smooth it temporarily with the back of his hand.  He shrugged and decided it was fine enough as it was, crossing the floor in his old boots with Morph doing its greatest impression of Scroop in some basic attempt to frighten the glowering tiger.  Morph was losing horribly.

                "Might have some of 'em," the tiger said with a guttural noise of negative connotations, taking the schedule in his massive paws and holding it with a surprisingly ginger grip.  Taking into account the ease with which he could undoubtedly tear a person, much less a paper, in half, it was perhaps understandable.  "Yeah, th' usual freshman stuff: military history, rud'ment'ry physics, navigatin' in any environment, blarh-blarh-blarh," he muttered in his grating voice, and then he paused, narrowing his eyes to stare with comic disbelief.  

He said, in a composed, rational voice, poking a warning claw straight at the line squarely positioned in the third time slot, "What the," he swore delicately, "is Vehicle Design and Buildin' doing on yer list?  That's a third year class.  I haven't even taken it yet."

Jim grinned as Morph tittered happily and relatively oblivious to what was happening.

The tiger gave him a look that was usually seen preceding violent crimes and disturbing newspaper articles, speaking with a rumbling growl, "Wipe that smirk off y'face, shrimp.  You're gettin' ya hair cut right off t'night, and then ya have to wake up at four fer the exercisin'.  If y'member to breathe when they getcha bleedin' and sweatin' outside, maybe then you'll make it in th' actual school day."  There was a subtle jest in the way he said it, an underlying tone of challenging humor, and the boy sat back on his cot, kicking off the aged boots as he cross his arms smugly under his rib cage.

"What're you saying?" he said, sprawling his legs in front of him as they stared unwaveringly at one another, nonverbally testing the edges of the other's will.  "That I won't last?  I didn't get on a stinkin' ether-car for the fun of it."

Surprising him, the tiger grinned, baring rows of polished ivory fangs, and he admitted, "Y'did solve the door test thing, and if they trust ya in here with me, y'gotta have somethin' that impressed 'em or pissed 'em off.  M'name is Cardigan Clemenceau, figger I'm pleased t'meetcha."  He did not extend his paw and Jim was perfectly fine with it, nodding and grinning in a friendlier manner that Cardigan returned easily, the almost territorial quality in the large Feline's eyes fading into a quieter quality.

"I'm Jim Hawkins," he said back, catching Morph in his hands and stroking the goopy creature as he swung his legs up to the cot, and he closed his eyes briefly, resting the back of his head against the wall, brush of his ponytail sweeping against the faint stretch of skin his shirt exposed in the back.  "Maybe we won't eat tonight, okay, Morph?" he asked as Cardigan stood, unfolding a monolithic height in the small room, forced to bend slightly to keep from crushing his swiveling ears, and the tiger moved toward the large chest at the foot of his cot.  The quiet sound of a lock pinging open and books being sorted through served as harmony for the moment, and he blinked, forcing himself up as a thought occurred to him.  "Got a knife I can use?" he asked, absently releasing Morph to bubble into the air, happily babbling and squirting a wave of silver bubbles to glitter prettily in the faint air current twisting about. 

"Yeah," Cardigan grunted, dropping several heavy books to the floor and reaching into a pouch sewn into the satin cloth on the interior of the chest.  A sheathed dagger was flipped expertly through the air and Jim caught it, fiddling his fingers around the bound hilt and sliding it free, twirling it up as his other hand grasped the thin trail of his ponytail, tugging it sharp and holding it in place.  The sharpened blade slid easy enough through his dark brown locks, the entirety of the ponytail still tied but coming free in his hand, and he clutched it, staring at the testimony of years past.  "Bangs, too, shrimp," the growling thunder voice added and he sighed, grabbing the trailing tendrils to slice them as gingerly as he could for fear of poking, say, his eyes out.

"Kinda ragged there, aintcha," Cardigan noted and he snorted, sheathing the blade and tossing it carelessly back to the tiger.

"I don't really care," he said cheerfully, flicking Morph away for the moment as he shifted the clothes to the floor and rested on his back, closing his eyes as the shape shifter squeaked around his head.  "Quiet," he ordered, seeing dimly at the back of his eyes the lights downing with excellent timing, and Cardigan laughed low, his cot creaking as he crept back onto it for whatever meditation he had been occupied with.

"I'll get t'wakin' ya when we need t'stroll on to the mess hall," the tiger grumbled kindly and Jim nodded, faking agreement when he had barely heard the words at all.  

---

                "Stay," he had a distinct memory of saying to the usually feisty shape shifter, earning himself a puzzled look and an acquiescing sigh.  The aftershocks of the waking bell rung in his ears, a disconcerting resonance that had him blinking as he picked his way behind a far more alert Cardigan through the halls, new boots flopping along the painfully bright corridors.

In any case, it was with a greater deal of morning comprehension than many of the other students that he stumbled out of the dormitory with the outward propelled crush of bodies, rubbing his palm hard against fluttering eyelids to rid them of an unpleasant texture therein.  Pausing, he let his hand fall down his face, scratching momentarily at his cheek, and blinked wearily at the stately driller bellowing in a deep voice unholy at such an hour, "Freshman, first years, whatever ya wanna call yourselves now, front an' center here!  You have fifteen seconds, cadets, and I don't want to have to break any spirits before breakfast today!"  Judging that to be something of a barometer he was most likely supposed to follow, Jim somehow managed to pick a way through the milling, confused gang composing his peer group, staggering a little in the regulation boots at least three sizes too large for him, and tried to ignore the dull chill on his legs.

                "Rows, people, if it isn't too hard," the driller said in a droning voice, dark green suit at vicious odds with the sophisticated image he had always received from Captain Amelia.  "If you're going to be this sloppy, then why the blinkin' devil did you sign up for the Academy!" he barked rhetorically.  The tall, undefined creature spoke it in such a way to bring directly into mind a capitalized letter, turning the word into an undeniable noun and perhaps the most important thing in the morn before the first of the three small suns woke past the horizon.

                He hazarded quick glances at the third and fourth year students, noting they had all formed perfect aisles and were in the midst of a series of push-ups, chanting a count that was tossed away by pre-dawn fog and the breathlessness of exhausted waking.  Sinking briefly to his knee, he quickly rolled the wrinkled cloth of his standard trousers into the boots, jerking his long sleeves away from wrists before he levered himself into the appropriate position for the push-ups his sleepy companions were beginning to tumble into.  Jim breathed out, and then yawned against his will as one of his eyes made to close temptingly at the stretching muscles, and he shook his head doggedly.  It was uncomfortable, the lack of previously never thought of weight gone where his ponytail and shaggy bangs had been, and he grimaced, both kinetically off-balance and feeling mud slowly oozing up through the cracks where his fingers lay flat on the ground.  

                "This is pathetic!" the driller snapped, as Jim held his position on the ground, tips of his boots sliding slowly and precariously through a patch of mud exposed where grass had been trod away by rough footsteps.  The tall man, weaves of tentacles swept back from his face with a heavy black ribbon, strode up and down the ragged rows the first years had formed, and he placed his boot firmly on the ground in front of Jim's head, glowering at them all.  "You will learn order, cadets, even if we have to beat it into you!  On my order, you will follow the excellent lead you see around you.  Now!"

                Breathing out an even gust of air, the boy lowered his upper body, muscles protesting at the exercise so early in the morn, and took a careful breath before repeating it, putting as much of his weight in the fractionally moving boots as he could.  It was easy enough getting into the pushing rhythm of the exercise and he closed his eyes briefly, hearing the other three age groups crying their upward counting chant as his fellow first years merely tried to keep limbs moving.  The likelihood of his drifting back into a dozing sleep were undoubtedly high, as he was relatively exhausted from the scant five hours of uncomfortable sleep on a cot instead of the hammock he had grown accustomed to; perhaps saving his dignity and the arguable cleanliness of his shirt before he fell asleep, a muffled sound somewhere 'tween a grunt and an exasperated whimper came from his left, giving him cause to reluctantly open his eyes and turn his head slightly.  Still bending his arms in the working motions of the push-ups, he managed around carefully maintained even breaths, "Are you okay?"

                "You are not supposed to talk, idiot," the questioned figure on his left gritted, lowering a small body with thin arms, ragged crimson hair framing the dark face with crinkled waves.  He raised a thick brown eyebrow and winced, a cramp forming in his chest where he had taken an erratic skip in his breathing, and Jim blew an absent funnel of air from his lips up, as if to sweep away a nonexistent bang.  "In any case," the tiny person continued with a pained breathlessness, tightening jaw muscles at the unwelcome pressure of continued movements, "a proper naval cadet does not request assistance in his or her chosen duty."

                He rolled his eyes, bending one of his legs forward to grip the mud at his heels with more of an advantage, the chill trickling away as the largest sun rose from the horizon and began swiftly heating the courtyard.  "I was only checking," he answered, lifting the curved heel of his palm out of the thin mud there, a suction noise following it.  "Are you okay?" Jim persisted, his right boot sliding uncomfortably along the slick mud as he continued with the exercises, his sleeves beginning to unfurl down his arms.

                "Oh for the sake of God," came the person's androgynous voice, an unusual quality that effectively destroyed any sound of gender in it, "if I answer, will you leave me to struggle in peace?"  He or she, as the humanoid being showed nothing to help label as masculine or feminine, tilted downward, lips thinning.  If anything, the person, male or female, could hardly have been beyond the age of twelve, much less on par with even his age, out of place in the mass of older teenagers and young adults.

                "Whatever," he responded off-handedly, finding it easier to say as he was forced to adjust both of his feet along the mud, lowering his own head briefly as the first droplets of sweat made themselves known.  A dying burst of chill wind, desperately seeking to pull free of the growing heat as the largest sun of the three haunting the planet sparkled a quickly rising temperature, stung the salty liquid not yet thick into a cold sheen.

                "I am fine," replied his speaking partner flatly, turning a swarthy head to stare at him with a complete trio of almond-shaped eyes, the middle one nearly hidden by a cropping of crimped bangs in the center of the forehead.  "Please shut the bloody hell up."  With this out of the way, the small being persisted in quivering motions, straightening thin arms and slowly bending them again, bangs collapsing around the third eye to obscure it from view.

                "Excuse me," Jim muttered, turning his own face to the slowly rippling mud underneath, thankful that the months spent on board the RLS _Legacy_ had put him in some sort of shape.  "Didn't mean to piss you off."  He heard another hiss from his left, saw from the corner of his eye as the person wavered then carefully caught that fine line of balance again, and did his best to ignore those around him, biting his lower lip as the minutes steadily clocked by in silent apathy.  His boots, once impeccably polished when he had pulled them on before stumbling down the stairs with a more alert Cardigan and the entirety of the building's junior population, were stained with the sticky wet soil and had begun to slide away from him a second time.  He swore under his breath, a strong word he would make sure his mother would never know he had learned on his gold-seeking quest, and carefully shifted his foot again, tightening his grip imperceptibly on the drier mud at the fore.

                A startled noise, the sort of exhale that was made when one slammed hard into something, erupted from his unfriendly companion and he glanced over to see the small figure's arms had finally given way, sending mud up to meet the falling body.  Biting his tongue sharply and keeping his lips firmly together, as well as switching his gaze quickly away from the silently fuming person, he managed to keep from laughing, his breath hitching a little from the effort.   There was an adage, after all, an old one that went somewhat like, _What goes around comes around, _and she had certainly deserved it.  

                A strong boot landed squarely in the middle of his back, applying swift force to the tender spot between shoulder blades, and with a startled half-finished cry of, "Wha," Jim had been shoved into the ground, knees and elbows striking the mud with a satisfying sploosh.  He lifted his head from the mud, gripping with his boots in preparation to climb up into a more balanced stance, and spotted the perfect, forest green boots of the driller, tilting his eyes up through raggedly cut bangs to see a dark expression on the aquatic designed creature's face.

                "If you feel the need to socialize, cadet," he hissed down at the mud-spattered boy, "then I suggest you do so when you are sleeping.  We are not here for your social enlightenment, so you and your little friend can sit these exercises out, since you can't keep your yap shut and it," he jerked one thumb from his four arms toward the smaller figure slowly picking free of the mud clinging desperately to thin red clothes, "can't even keep the pathetic pace you lot set for yourself.  You two will report for kitchen duty and will forfeit breakfast."  His countless beady eyes, glimmering dark pearls set in the threatening, angled green face, flashed a heady warning as Jim nearly protested out of sheer habit, and he almost cut his tongue snapping his jaw shut, remembering lessons he had promised himself he would obey.  The driller turned quickly on his heel, splashing the faintest spray of mud up and into one of the few clean spots on Jim's face, and the disgruntled teenager passed a muddy hand over his face, only serving to smear the uncomfortable wetness further across his features.

                "My greatest, undying gratitude for your display of bravado and self-will," the equally dirtied figure next to him said flatly, sitting up beside him and shaking arms with a grimace, flecks of mud dropping with plops.  "However could I have ever had such exhilarating fun on my first actual excursion into the academy I have prepared for in the past ten years of my life."  She turned to look at him as he groaned and fell back, spreading his arms in the mud, deciding he might as well get mud on the back of his shirt as it was already thickly caked on the front.  "Are you quite insane or is this just an irrational display of idiocy?" she asked politely.

                "Why're you rude?" he shot back, sending his eyes to the corners, glaring at her from behind his mask of mud, hair seeping into the pillowing mud underneath him. "And like this was fun anyway," he continued, raising a hand from the mud and shaking it, ignoring the sounds of their fellows muttering and quavering with quickly dying strength.  "Aren't you kinda young to be here?  You look just like," he cut off, interrupted by her curt words and a dangerous narrowing of her two human-set eyes, the top one unmoving.

                "A little girl?" she suggested.  "That would be rather difficult, as my species has no gender.  I am biologically devoid of the physical characteristics that might classify me as either one of the standard genders.  In addition," her, or its, eyes narrowed even further, "I am seventeen Empirical years in age and am your chronological senior by two years."

                There was a pause as he sat back up, shaking his arms with abrupt motions to send slingshots of mud hard into the moist earth, feeling his muddied and spiraled hair where the strands had been forced into an uncomfortable mess, caked into place in a way that would desperately need showering.

                "I am Rubin Glidewell," she finally said as they watched each other in mutual suspicious kinship, and a thin smile whitened a slash of teeth in the dark mask plastered to her thin face.

                "Jim Hawkins," he said for the second time in the past few hours, holding a weary hand for her to shake.  She did so and he pulled her into the mud, earning him a noisy swear that would have turned his face scarlet had it not been for the mud covering his face.  "What goes around comes around," he muttered as the students filling the courtyard to nearly bursting continued their elongated chant, and the driller made a shrill barking sound, interrupting the entirety of the cadets' group.  The drillers for each class year made accompanying sounds to give their charges pause, and both Jim and Rubin watched him, the latter adopting a narrow-lipped expression of carefully lidded threat as the boy picked at the mud in his hair.  It was unreasonable to expect him to be pleasant to everyone he met, especially at an ungodly hour with a large sun steadily, heatedly streaming into the waiting sky of the thrumming world host to the main campus and countless cities and peoples.

                "All right, kids," the driller shouted, "we've gotten the first fifteen minutes out of the way.  Flip onto your backs and get ready for some sit-ups.  We've got forty-five minutes left, and we want you as muddy as all get out when you waste water in the showers.  Now!"  He turned calmly and began pacing between the uneven rows, stately ignoring the abounding groans and muffled curses.

---

Notes:  Be careful to never make the mistake of thinking Rubin to be a girl.  :]  I'm using the feminine pronouns as they fit the character best, physically and mentally, and I want to make it clear to my maybe two readers that Rubin is not a love interest.  I've had her in my head since I started this fanfic.  Speaking of original characters, Cardigan Clemenceau's last name is a pun: Clemenceau was the last name of one of the "Big Three" following World War I (David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, and Woodrow Wilson), and he was nicknamed "old tiger."  Catch it?

A thousand thanks to nameless shadow, who took the time to give me a review at a most welcome moment.  I was convinced my story had something horribly wrong in it and was therefore the reason no one seemed to be reading, which is silly of me in any case.  I really appreciate it.  :]  I just hope my writing isn't suffering in this chapter, and I can assure everyone I'm still working on characterization.

And, for the heck of it, I wrote a teaser for a Silver/Sarah fic ('Happenstance') posted at my blog, which seems to be hosting several random informal essays that wander vastly and more than one inane thought.  It's the closest thing to fluff I've written in ages and that's really a pity, as fuzzy romances have always been my strong suit…

-Palla.

royalnavyacademy.blogspot.com 

It's an advertisement and I'm not ashamed to admit it.  Much.  I'll be behind that rock over there, with the vermin and small insects.  


	4. Year One: Third

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Academia: Year One

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_Once we had been so informed by the monolith dressed in scarlet that he was not the captain at all and that the captain was in the rigging above our heads, Jim and I both glanced up, perhaps in a mix of reflex and curiosity. A lithe blue figure all but flew overhead, snagging fingers briefly on cords and ropes before, with a simple flip and a casual straightening of her uniform, Captain Amelia landed quite gracefully on the deck and proceeded to address the first mate (a fellow by the name of Mister Arrow). With this done, having presented herself as an odd amalgam of serious lecture and light sarcasm, she turned to me, the plate on my accursed metal suit smashed shut, and said in a voice I discovered I did not like, "Doctor Doppler, I presume?"_

As Jim looked on with some amusement I admit was rather founded, I found myself, over the course of the ensuing twenty-so minutes, being insulted in a most roundabout way, daggering words that she quickly covered with a twisting apology that was nearly as confusing as her insults. She was beautiful, razor-tongued, intelligent, and had what seemed to be some form of a sadistic streak, and I believe it was around noon the next day that I found myself suffering the first horrible stings of something akin to love. I hardly think I have ever experienced anything quite as unpleasant, and as I write this, I daresay I will find myself in a great deal of trouble with her.

Doctor Delbert Doppler

On Solar Wings: The Revival of Flint

Ra'liton Publishing (renewed OL 350)

--

Amelia touched the stretch of velvet fur where her ribs ended in a smooth curve, coat unbuttoned and white shirt pushed up so she could prod with gentle fingers the area still sore. Over the past month or so she had grown accustomed to the constant ache in her side, as she had to many uncomfortable changes in her body, some natural and others of a kind that had to be forced onto an individual. A humorless smile touched her painted lips, the small corners of her mouth twitching up as she held her gloved palm to her torso, claws nipping the edges of some unsightly scars that formed ridges of bare caramel skin where the fur would not grow over again. She felt no regret for the complete lack of femininity each jagged rip and each reminder of pain showed her, and she cared little to what others might think, but she was not pleased to welcome a new addition to her maladies. It was still rather sensitive when touched, organs and tissue stitched neatly up beneath the skin and soft hair shorn close by medical examiners, and would undoubtedly be so for months, even as she continued with her usual style of life.

She sighed and tugged her shirt firmly down, coolly buttoning with a swift chain of her wrists flicking the sturdy blue cotton of her coat before she used her palms to easily smooth back her sleek red hair, tucking the auburn strands into their usual position close to her scalp. Clicking her carefully maintained claws to the desk's honey smooth surface, she turned to gaze out the clean panes of the bay window, an eyebrow raising as she studied the dark of nighttime etherium. Checking almost unconsciously for any suspicious galleons was a habit engrained deeply into her persona and she took it in stride, relaxing tense cords in her thin shoulders after a moment's perusal revealed no threats. 

Stepping quickly and efficiently over the floor in a swift cascade of tiny clicks and a smooth rustle of cloth, the coat's tailored hem brushing along her grey breeches, Amelia adopted the same amused, severe expression that had served well to confuse many a questionable person. It had irritated and bemused the kind Doctor, as well, and she frowned at the complications of their odd relationship, too friendly to be professional and too stiff to be romantic. A great deal of the stiffness was most likely on her part, as she was unused to any men taking any form of interest in her outside of the _damn fine captain, that Amelia _variety or the _damn captain, shoot her, you scurvy idiots _opposing that first standpoint. 

In any case, she had no time to consider any of it, twisting the large gears holding the tumbled lock into place and shoving gracefully open the heavy wooden door of her stateroom.

She loved the smell of the etherium, a cavalcade of subtle scents that twisted into one another to birth a wondrous tang that could be easily lost by those with less sensitive noses, though it often emerged by way of etherium sickness and could be combated with a bad cold or specific medicines. The medicines, though, tended to have the same effect as a cold, stopping the nose up so that the smell could not irritate the body into nausea and other unpleasant illnesses. When she was younger, she had thought it humorous, that beings with advanced olfactories would be unaffected, whereas those without fared much worse. Too many spacers working below her falling ill to the sickness had rid her of that amusement and instead given her a lack of sympathy for those not smart enough to simply shut up and take their damned pills.

Whatever the fragrance, she loved it: smooth and quiet, rather like tea, which she enjoyed quite dearly, and it often soothed her when she had little else to turn to. No matter what hardships or pains she might take to her body and mind, the etherium would eternally exist for her, and God knew she would let nothing keep her from the environment she loved most.

Thusly, she stepped with ease and grace down the hewn steps trailing from her stateroom and the small deck there to the main deck waiting under flickering starlight for the coming morn, absently tucking her gloves a little tighter around her elbows as the stiff cloth flared slightly as it was supposed to. She was a picture of elegance and professionalism, feline strength incarnate, and a satisfactory smile pressed her lips to see that everything was perfectly maintained. The rigging was tight, the deck was cared for, and she could hear in the galley voices raised in argument pitch, broken by a surprisingly loud, scolding remark from Sarah that successfully stopped the debate before it could turn to swords and blood. Amelia wondered how well Silver might have brought about his mutiny had the startlingly formidable Missus Hawkins been on board; the woman was an excellent diplomat, respectful, soft, and strong tones helping her as she insisted on whatever it was she believed, and the captain thought it quite possible she might have turned the mutiny against the cyborg.

Jim thought the world of Silver, heaven explain it all and hell to decipher the explanation later, but Amelia had little for him but a grudging respect and an intense dislike. She remembered Mister Arrow, a strong figure that had been with her for so many years, and she paused at the foot of the stairs, near the galley, closing her eyes and collecting together the still sharp edges of a mournful memory. Breathing out, she clenched her fists, feeling her claws tickle the skin beneath her gloves, and then relaxed her grip, pushing back the aging sadness before she thought to open her eyes once more upon the glorious landscape. What was done was done, and there was naught she, nor anyone, could do to change it.

There remained a necessity, waiting this voyage out at least running the duties of first mate herself, and she would need to find a capable person to fill the empty space left professionally by her dedicated friend and ally, though the tiny nick in her essence by the loss of a friend might take longer. She frowned into the night, feeling beneath her feet the faint, almost imperceptible rock of the ship aiding the etherium sickness some might experience, and allowed an uncharacteristic sigh, a brief lowering of her strength. She was without her hat, having left it in her stateroom, but she doubted anyone other than the unfortunate spacer appointed guard would be on deck, so it was not wholly important. 

Crossing the deck, she studied the yawning skies, glancing up the masts to see the softly muttering flaps of the canvas glittering with the sheen of pale yellow as they waited patiently for the brighter lights to collect once more. The clouds, airy shades of dark violet and swallowing blues, were puffy and thick, almost swollen, and she saw in the distance the flickering pale blue and dark red of the cosmic storms they had bypassed earlier, smiling with a hint of triumph in her lips at having avoided the possible chaos. She brushed an errant strand of hair behind the sharp angle of her ear, sweeping over the strong wood of the deck and around the strong mast, sharp feline eyes catching the figure hunched near the guard post.

"Doctor," she called, smiling almost kindly as she picked an easy way to the Canine fumbling with a stylus and several clumsily stacked sheaths of paper. He glanced at her, his dark brown eyes startled behind the crooked shelter of his spectacles, and then tried to shuffle his loose papers together with an uneven collection of books beside him sorted in a way that made very little sense whatsoever. "Doctor, are you aware that your spectacles are close to falling from your snout?" she commented vaguely, standing elegantly beside him, though politely refraining from pinning any of the mess under her stiletto heels. "Tough it is somehow disarming, it is also rather foolish looking. I find it advisable that you possibly rectify it before you manage to lose them, which would be something of a pity as you do seem rather astute at what you do."

He quickly moved to push the glasses into a more respectable position, a marginally insulted look on his face, which she smugly acknowledged, having had that in mind when she had spoken. "Foolish," she heard him mutter. "Foolish? Ha! Not me, certainly, I don't believe." An uncertain note had entered at the end and she considered why it was he would take her words mildly personal, arching her eyebrows skyward as if to plead for an explanation as to why nothing could be half as simple as she wished often. "Captain," he started, nearly indignant as he turned to face her again, stilling the stylus from his careful scribbling of illegible notes, "I don't think – wait, astute?" He blinked, his offense sputtering and dying sadly at the realization that she had once again presented a double-edged sword composed of insult and compliment. "But," he floundered and then he switched his gaze back to his paper, slapping a hand to his forehead as though it might help.

"Indeed," Amelia replied dryly much to Doppler's continued mortification before her mischievous tone returned. "Have you by any chance seen if Mister Diggins has managed to piece his act together?" she began in a cheekily blithe voice, her curious twice-sided nature appearing. "He seemed so very incompetent it is a wonder he has grown past his childhood. I dare say I might need to restrain him in the brig for his own safety as well as the continued welfare of my vessel, before I am forced to do something drastic such as remove his hands from his body." She twitched her lips up in a tiny smile when Doppler looked at her, an odd, comprehending expression on his face.

"Are you joking?" he asked slowly, as if to test a theory he had stumble upon, trying to judge her serious expression and the subtle, teasing lilt in her voice.

"I never joke, Doctor Doppler," she fired back, hands folding serenely at the base of her spine, reed-slender body stiff with the delicate, but deadly, poise she was naturally predisposed to. "On occasion I have been known to jest, and perhaps once every few years when I have imbibed a bit too much wine at those regal events the hierarchy insists upon I might allow myself a mock or two, but I have yet to joke." She smiled, a thin upward rictus that was as bemusing as her nature, and she continued lightly, in a bantering tone, "I find it a foolish waste of time and have also found there are many things I can accomplish during such times a-wasted. Have you any tea with you, by chance?" Her gaze turned piercing, a thoughtful note trickling into her polished voice, and he looked about his person, seeing papers, inkpots, a few un-inked pens, and many things that were quite obviously not a thermos or any drink at all. "There is a rather chill wind up here on deck. What is this thing you seem to be doing, by the way, as it is cluttering up my deck quite messily."

"It is somewhat cold," he agreed, and paused, studying her straight face in quest of any form of jest in it to deny her last sentence. "Are you really interested?" Doppler then asked, unable to fully stifle the eager tone in his voice, not being used to anyone showing interest in his work. "I mean, you aren't joking, or trying to fool me, or," he was efficiently cut off.

"I though I informed you I do not joke, Doctor," she snapped in a peculiarly friendly manner. "Now, do you wish to show me what it is you are doing or am I to restrain you to your quarters for the duration of the voyage and force you to work alongside Mister Diggins as punishment for daring to argue with the captain?" The curl at the edges of her mouth was somehow warmer than usual, an unexpected change in her usually lightly stern exterior.

"I think I'd rather be shot than trust my life in his hands," he muttered.

"If you entrusted him with your life, you just might be shot anyway," she remarked in cool reply, leaning forward just so out of her stiff-backed posture in a nonverbal beckon for him to get on with it.

"Erm, well," he started eloquently, a nervous, almost bashful tone to his words, in place of the usual nearly puppy excitement, "that is to say, I'm doing a thesis on military strategy in the Trans-Tujin War. I received a notice from my alma mater," he straightened his back proudly, intoning with great depths of sincere pride, "the University de Conocimiento, about having a post as a professor. They want me to write a few different papers to send in for analysis before they try to see if I can begin teaching." 

The mere thought seemed to light him up, a glowing achievement that she could easily pinpoint as having been his goal for many years, and though she felt an unexplained displeasure at the idea, she simply granted him a soft, approving smile. It was a remarkable accomplishment, and she supposed she was to feel a sort of – what word would be appropriate, she thought to herself, and she finished it neatly with, a sort of sympathetic happiness for him. 

"What have you written?" she questioned and he flipped through the papers, taking care that they did not flutter away into the gloriously beautiful void that was the etherium. "While you try to fix your continued ineptitude with organization skills," Amelia stated in an airy tone, threaded with her wry amusement, "I have a favor I must ask you: check that Missus Hawkins' quarters have a stiff lock. I will not stand for her to have a lock that might break under any sort of pressure, and it might do you well to check that your own lock works well." At his querying reply, one she sliced through after only the first syllable, she persisted with a serious voice, quietly deadly, "There are pirates along the route, Doctor, and it would not pay to stray from our course as that could very well be even more dangerous. We are not dealing with a threat like that of a simple mutiny, nor are we dealing with the likes of Barry Robin. The Flail of Procyon is said to be wandering a trail near to ours."

"Him?" Doppler choked, eyes widening with deep-rooted apprehension and an acknowledgeable, as well as explainable, fear. "But he was--"

"Incarcerated?" she suggested. "I fear he escaped as he always seems to do, Doctor. Francho Ololois seems quite adept at doing so. Kindly give me your notes, as from what little I can tell, you have little knowledge of military strategy whatsoever."

---

Sarah flipped aside the hemmed cloth of her bed, running a hand down the inside of the sturdy cotton, and smiled to herself, completely happy for the first time in – she couldn't even remember how many years since it was she had last felt as though she could just close her eyes and not wake crying or worrying. They would draw into the port in a few days, and if B.E.N. could manage it without doing something potentially harmful, she would have a small apartment to live in for a few months to find a contractor and make sure Jim was doing well. Montressor was small and she knew the best construction teams would be found elsewhere, and nearly all the work on buildings down along the dusty surface of her home planet was done by imported work teams. 

Sighing, she tilted her head back to study the angled ceiling in her tiny room, the walking space but a few steps and the height of the room required her to bend her knees and waist slightly to move, but it was hers for the voyage. She closed her eyes and breathed, taking in the delicate scent of polished wood and making a brief face at an uncomfortable blossom of faint nausea in her stomach, feeling below her feet the soft rocking the ship was drifting with. A moment was all it took to pick out the tiny white pills she had packed in one of her two bags, carefully setting one on her tongue and swallowing the etherium sickness med with a wrinkle of her nose at the unpleasant, bitter herbal aftertaste. It would take a few minutes before it could begin to work and she felt her thick brown hair, seating herself briefly on the edge of her perfectly made cot as she began weaving her hair into a loose braid with quick, practiced flicks of her fingertips. 

"I might as well see if I can find something to eat," she murmured, tying a swift knot at the end of her braided locks and proceeding to twist it up into an idyllic bun at the fairy soft back of her head. She used a trio of pins taken from the same bag to stick the bun into place and she stood, keeping her back bent in hopes of avoiding smacking her head painfully along the ceiling. Reaching for her modesty cap, she clasped it over the elegant bun, knotting with a gentle grip the double strings under her smooth chin and tugging firmly at the strings to draw the cap into a ruffled shield obscuring her hidden hair completely and securely. 

She checked her attire, the skirt flowing in a flattened bell shape from the daintily sewn waist and the bosom of it at a modestly proper height on her chest, the faint dip of her collarbone only just visible, the puffing white sleeves of her undershirt fitted from under the straps of her pale pink dress. Satisfied that she was perfectly outfitted in the polite, conservative style that she had been raised to believe in, she then moved to the door, twisting the knob and stepping into the lamp-lit hallway flickering with a pale yellow glow. The thin, fragile hoops supporting her skirt knocked momentarily along her stocking-covered legs and she paused to orient her mind, trying to remember which way to go. Recollection served her well and reminded her kindly that the stairwell was a few feet at her back, and Sarah turned, lightly walking to the stairs and, bunching her skirt in one hand to keep from tripping on the hem, stepping hurriedly up them.

She was greeted by the night skies of the etherium, shaded by purple and rich colors of deep texture and welcoming beauty, and she had to grip the slender brass rail, her head lolling gently back as she peered into the gorgeous, consuming depths swirling overhead. Her breath caught in her throat, hitching while a wonderment took tender hold of her soul, and she could suddenly, fully understand why it was Jim had fallen so in love with the etherium, speaking at great lengths about it. It made a lovely sense now, understanding why it was he had such difficulty trying to put into words why he had been so convinced he wanted to attend the academy, why it was that he needed to earn the right, the privilege, the honor to be a captain.

"If I were ten years younger," she admitted quietly to herself, loathing that to speak she would break the comely silence, "I would've done the same." 

Trailing her hand up the rail affixed to the wall, parallel to the few steps left before her, she blinked and slowly moved her hand back to the front, focusing on the mast and plucking her mind free of the wonderful fingers of etherium epiphany. Sarah shook her head slightly, a short motion of her head from one side to the other, and she quickly ascended the remaining steps, hesitating once on the deck to see the beauty once more before she rounded the jutting wall and stepped quietly down the next set of steps that led to the massive galley.

The explosion of noise was unsettling, a sudden change from the genteel delicacy above into a raucous collection of men and the occasional woman chewing dedicatedly at food, arguing and speaking in noisy tones around the room, seated at the long-tables set up. In the back she could see the cook, an alien with countless arms and appendages, a froth of tentacles sprouting from his mouth and swirling around his sickly green face, and she hesitated, not trusting the man entirely when she saw the condition of his skin; as a cook herself, she knew better than to eat anything cooked by someone who looked as if they had not bathed in a few months, and she tried to decide if she really wanted to eat the questionable stew he was preparing. Someone made a grotesque sound to the side, commenting rudely and in an obscene manner on how much they appreciated the dirt found drifting in the thick, pasty broth, and that angered the mother in her.

"Excuse me, sir, can I help you?" she called, hoisting her skirt up past her ankles and carefully lifting her feet over bottles, discarded boots, food stuffs, and whatnot scattered over the floor, and she saw several startled looks given her by the men. The smoke in the galley, billowing in a quiet manner from the wood-stoked stove, gave her no pause, as she was used to the unpleasant parts of running her own inn, and she came to a stop next to the cook. He granted her an odd, strangled rumbling sound in a language that consisted of burbles and sharp consonants. "Oh, don't be rude," she scolded, kindly placing her hands on his lumpy shoulder and pushing him away from the stove. "Sit down and I'll work the kitchen, if you don't mind." She said it in such a fashion that she allowed no response whatsoever, having spoken it in a tone suggesting she was presenting an order and not a request, and the cook, unused to being told to refrain from his job, backed away, wandering with a lost expression to the closet free spot on the benches. 

"This is disgusting," she muttered, raising the pot from the stove and studying it with an appearance of stupefied disgust, and she strode quickly to the deep washbasin, tilting the sludgy contents out. A stream of water was sparked to flow over the trails slowly moving to the drain, and then she directed the water to splurge through the pot, sticking her hand into it and wiping with the side of her palm to rid the metal of the stew's rancid insides. "All right, then, I just need to wash my hands," and she did so, "and then I can cook something that's actually edible."

Several of the men glanced down at their stained bowls, chewing thoughtfully at the tasteless lumps in their mouths, and, with apologetic looks sent to the effectively discarded cook, began to move to the basin, shuffling behind her after she had cleaned her hands to dump their portions into the sink.

"Sit down, all of you," she ordered, laughing and smiling in a way that put the grizzled spacers in a surprised state of ease. "I'll try to cook as fast as I can, if you'll all just sit down and wait patiently." She shook her head again, in a gentler manner, and began flipping open the deep cupboards by her shins, peeking into the shadowed, stuffed places for anything she could prepare a stew with. Several armfuls of vegetables tied up in preserving mesh bags were pulled free, followed by a haunch of dried, salted meat, and she slid the doors shut, flipping through the drawers at level with her torso and claiming a few knives of varying sizes. "If you have beer," she called, using one of the knives' dull side to tear open the mouth of a mesh bag and collecting several of the thick, wobbly pink carrots, hailing from the Shani'n Coral Reef if she remembered correctly, "then you should finish your drink quickly and get some water. Water works best with this kind of stew, and the flavor gets dulled if you're drunk."

The women in the galley shrugged and downed their mugs of alcohol, leading a much smaller movement back to the washbasin, tugging on the thin rope to let the clear liquid flow into their froth-sticky mugs.

"Could someone find some purps for me?" Sarah continued, looking briefly through a cupboard over her head, standing on the tips of her feet in an attempt to see better into the higher cupboards. This was one of the times she regretted her shorter height, a feminine height that had counterbalanced her square face, which though pretty, was never what might be considered classically beautiful. "This won't work," she murmured, closing the cupboard and lifting a knife to slice quickly through the length of one of the shani'n carrots. 

As she set the knife aside and scooped the dark pink carrot bits into her cupped hands, hastily plopping them into the shallow water in the pot, a pair of large, muscular hands offered several of the purple fruits native to Montressor and several other planets. "Oh, thanks," she said, taking them two in each hand before she looked her benefactor in the face.

A long, defined face with a nose that had the ridge in the middle that served as testimony that it had been broken once smiled jaggedly at her, and she recognized it as the hapless one of Mister Diggins. "Oh!" she repeated, smiling as she felt a bit of pity and warmth for the clumsy man. "Mister Diggins! Thank-you, really. I looked in the cupboards and they weren't in any of them."

"They're kept in the barrels on the left side of the galley," he informed her in an oddly soft voice for his tall, strong frame. "Fruits are perishables, so they can't be kept in the cupboards." He nodded his head in response to her thanks and carefully sat on a squat stool next to the counter, and she rolled her eyes in wry amusement at herself.

"You'd think I would remember that," she laughed, finishing the carrots and dropping them in a cascade of popping bubbles as well as thin splashes into the pot's withheld water. "I've had my own inn for the past seventeen years, and I really should remember things like that. I suppose I haven't had enough sleep lately." She gave him a charming smile, the worn motherly one she had frequently given to Jim, and he smiled in reply, a bashful expression on a face that was surprisingly innocent for the roughness of his features. "What are you doing here, Mister Diggins? On the _Legacy,_ I mean."

"Alfred, ma'am," he replied in that soft whispering voice of his, "and I want to see things I haven't seen before. I'm a rigger, ma'am, and I'm not usually as bad at it as I was today. It's just – I'm used to working on smaller ships." He glanced down at his meaty palms, shafts of black hair moving around his face, and she had the sudden impression that it was not so much that he was incapable or handicapped, but unsure of himself.

"Oh, don't worry," she disagreed, "I'm sure you'll get the hang of it." She smiled at him, quietly gentle but with an undercurrent of strength that was always present in her face, and she added in a playfully sharp tone, "And I'm not ma'am, Alfred. My name is Sarah Hawkins."

Alfred Diggins looked up, a jagged smile on his face like an awkward, asymmetrical picture, and he said wholeheartedly, "Thanks for cooking, Miss Sarah." He glanced at the alien that had been assigned as cook, who seemed to be sulking and possibly attempting to drink his oblivious neighbor's mug of beer empty with one of his nasty tentacles, and then pointedly at the pot she was stirring. "Not to put Mister Grogarn down," he remarked mildly, "but he isn't the best of cooks. Or smells."

"Have you traveled together before?" Sarah asked, leaning over the pot and sniffing delicately at the more pleasant scent now wafting in gentle waves up from the pot. Judging it ready, she encircled it with arms and heaved up, staggering backwards a fraction at the combined weight and size of it, finding the pot a little more difficult to manage when it was actually full. Alfred moved to help and she stayed him with a piercing, if friendly, glare as well as a firm shake of her head otherwise, and she gritted out, squaring her feet carefully backwards, "Please don't try to help me, Alfred. It'll be easier for me if I do it on my own without people buzzing around me trying to help." Her tone was kind, though, so it took some of the possible sting from her words, and he subsided quietly, the stringy black fringe of his hair passing over watchful, anxious eyes.

She moved to the large stove-slash-boiler in the center of the kitchen, fitting the pot with some infinite care onto the post-raised metal circle under the stretching light, and scanned the sides of the boiler for any dials or buttons she could push to bring about the heat. "We've worked on the same ships a few times," he called behind her and she made an agreeing noise, one that encouraged him to speak, but informed him she would not be replying for the moment. "He's a fine cook and all, but only when you're really hungry. Otherwise it's just kind of," he paused to grope for the best word in his mind as she found the heat panel and prodded the small lever up into the slot marked as simmer-and-steam. "Gross," he said ineloquently and helplessly blunt.

"Well," Sarah said with an almost haughty, smug tone of voice, as though she begged to differ vastly, "I think I'll be cooking for this trip, so don't worry about anything, Alfred. If I can run my own inn, raise my own ill-tempered son, and weather floods every year on Montressor, I'm confident I can take care of the galley." She glanced back at the soup preparing itself rather quickly on the stove and then spared a peep at the bare, unused tin plates next to grimy bowls that each of the spacers had, and muttered, "Bread, bread, I need a loaf. Where's the bread?" She looked at Alfred and made a dismissive gesture. 

"Oh, never mind. I'll find it." Sarah turned to the cupboards once more, trying to see into the lifted depths and finding it just a bit difficult with her height, but she refused to admit it. "Could you check the soup, please?" she asked, voice muffled by the cupboard door next to her head, and Alfred clambered clumsily to his feet, moving across the floor to stare at the mildly bubbling soup, which had begun to make threatening hissing sounds. "And if it's hissing at you, don't worry: it's supposed to do tha--oof!" 

She fell backwards from the cupboard, clutching a dried and quite possibly rock hard loaf of mesh-covered bread in her hands, and landed with one arm casting over part of the boiler, wincing at the needles that attacked her legs quickly. "Ow," she sighed, slowly getting back on her feet.

---

Notes: Real quick! This is a set-up chapter (much like the past few have been), in that it's establishing a setting, that of the RLS _Legacy_. I know my chapters have been rather short, but once I've settled into a rhythm, I'm sure they'll get longer and will accomplish much more than they have been. :] 

I have two mentions in this chapter of pirates, the names of which are actually derived from real pirates (from back in the day before being a pirate required the Internet and mp3s). Barry Robin was taken from Bartholomew Roberts, who was a pirate famous for his kindness and his gentlemanly nature (he treated all prisoners with respect and was noted for forbidding many vices on his ship); Francho Ololois came from Francis L'ollonois, the Flail of Spain, who, on the other hand, was one of the worst pirates to roam the seas, a vicious cutthroat who was a sadist, merciless, and – in my opinion – the most frightening pirate who lived. The university Doppler mentioned was the University de Conocimiento, or (translating the second two words from Spanish) the University of Knowledge. The Tujin is actually a species I mentioned once before in the previous chapter, and is the race of Himu, another original character to finally be introduced next chapter.

I have several thanks to give this chapter, happiness of happiness! _nameless shadow,_ I really enjoyed your story, by the way, and it's true – the only thing that says friendship better than mud is…I'm sure there's something, right? ^-^ And I love writing the intros – it's a way for me to write something that can establish the mood or whatnot, things I probably won't be able to actually put into the story. _Tmyres77,_ I did e-mail you (and you got it! Yay!…^-^), and I liked your story, too! A great deal, and I think it inspired me to start working on an A/D one-shot to be posted someday soon. Characterization seems to be my strong suit…_western-pegasus, _I /love/ your story! Is the title Latin or Italian? I want to say Italian, but I'm not entirely sure – you write in a way that everything flows (I'm not sure I can describe it). I've finished about four pages (about one-third) of the first part of 'Happenstance,' and I'm relieved to know at least one person likes the idea. ;] _Nix Entente, _I feel marginally guilty now. And I did write the intro on my own (it was just supposed to be the first three paragraphs, but I kept writing…). I wish I was older than I am…I can't even hold a job, which means I need to bug my mum for cash. Five more months and I can earn my own money! *victory!*

General consensus seems to like Rubin. *double victory!* Yes! Good, 'cause she's going to be around for a while. 

Side note, here: I'm leaving this coming Sunday with my family to go to Egypt (to visit my dad, who is I the USAF), so I'll try to post the next chapter this Friday before we leave. I'll still be able to write and post while I'm there, but I'm not sure how fast it will be and I'm almost certain I won't be able to post for about a week after Sunday. I know I'll be writing, definitely! Just don't worry if I'm not able to post for a bit, okay? ^-^

-Palla.

royalnavyacademy.blogspot.com (it gets weirder and more incomprehensible each day….)


	5. Year One: Fourth

**Academia:** Year One

--

_TO: Admiral Althea Hamilton, Queen's Brigade (Army Depot #A-5564)_

_RE: Response to position as Parliament/Tujin ambassador_

_Admiral Hamilton:_

_Like most sane, normal people, I don't like the Tujin race very much.  They're quarrelsome, stuck-up, self-absorbed, and Mightier-Than-Thou-And-Damn-Proud-Of-It jerkwads.  Yeah, every once in a while, someone like, say, Ra'liton lu ma'Aq de Terre will show up, with a creepily long name and all the fun psychosis that come with the Tujin package.  He's a great guy, which means he doesn't fit in well on his home turf._

_                But the Tujin tend to be more like his big sis, Himu: loud, narcissistic, utterly convinced they're the greatest single species in the universe.  She has the distinction of being a complete bitch, though, and only the second one of her species I ever met, so that might've affected how I tend to look at the Tujin races.  Add in that their home galaxy is one of the wealthiest in the Empire and that they lord their money over every poor guy in the academy doesn't make it easier._

_                When you think about it, though, any species that engaged in a civil war - the Trans-Tujin War for all those high schools students like me who don't give a crap about stuff that happened God-knows-how many thousands of years ago -  for eight-hundred years and attempted to do some kind of religious genocide doesn't have a lot going for it.  For Christ's sake, they tried to wipe out their own subcultures!  _

_                Once you get past the fact that they have some belief they're the most beautiful beings in the entire Empire – which is funny in an _are you crazy? _sort of way, as they tend to be mediocre – you have to deal with this entire species of people who, unlike the Densadron species who tend to be all stupid, have different 'smart levels' and all act the same – damn – way.  There's differences, of course, like Himu's more narcissistic than noisy, her older brother's more of a punch-'em-and-grind-'em-in-the-dirt guy, and her mom's a lot like Satan in retrospect, but it's all pretty much the same._

_                I mean, fine, great, we should all accept one another, and I can get along with Himu _now _without trying to gouge my eyes out or demand to know why she can't be nice to people who aren't as rich as her, and there are several Tujin I don't mind spending time with, but the Ra'liton family can go to hell.  Okay, I technically owe her great-great-great-great grandfather my graduation degree for founding the original navy academy, and the Imperial Parliament agrees with the outdated Spacer Council that we still owe the line of marksmen the Ra'liton family churns out, but – God!  _

_                Maybe on an off day I can be friends with Himu, but until her whole freaking species – much less her! – learns to breathe without snidely commenting on how _horribly passé, darling, _a person's outfit, hair, or personality is, I'm not going to be any damn ambassador to the Tujin homeworld.  Send someone like Captain Glidewell.  I don't know if I can be trusted to not commit mass homicide on the first day._

_                With as much dignity as I can afford,_

_                Captain James P. Hawkins._

Letter infamously sent by Captain Hawkins to Admiral Hamilton, circa OL 360

Excerpted from Navy Beats Army: A Tribute to Military Tradition

Mumaq Presses (renewed OL 368)

                _Why the hell does the navy let pretentious, cocky morons like him join?  He can't even write a formal letter!_

Attributed to Admiral Hamilton upon reading Captain Hawkins' Parliament/Tujin letter

--

                Jim thought it was a nasty irony that, in the one place he had been completely certain he would never have the unwanted opportunity to wash dishes, serve food, and bus tables, he found himself doing exactly that.  Cardigan had somehow pinpointed him in the crowd of exhausted freshmen, which was either another example of God laughing at him or a representation of the tiger's admirable navigation skills, and hauled him to the dormitory showers, granting him the first shower.  He had come out, adjusting the scratchy white towel fastened around his waist, and, rubbing soapy water out of his eyes and wrinkling his nose in irritation and sharp pain, found an exact uniform had been laid out on the bench.  It was certainly not that he was shy or embarrassed, or anything akin to that at all, but he had grabbed his uniform and immediately ducked back into the shower stall.  Yanking the short-sleeved charcoal undershirt on and then the sleeveless sweater of black wool, he had somehow pulled the ebony trousers on, buttoning the latch and stuffing feet clad in now soggy black socks into the mud-streaked boots.  

                None of it was comfortable, he was sweating almost as much as he had when actually exerting himself, and he had yet to be told what it was he should do while in the kitchen.  It seemed to stretch for nearly a mile, counters and stoves and God knew what else forming a massive entangling labyrinth of cooking equipment frequented by bustling men, women, and robots.  "This is insane," he gritted, checking the red knot of the tie Cardigan had helpfully supplied him and looking about for his unwilling companion.  She, and he used she in the loosest of terms, was late, but it looked as though no one actually cared that she was.  

                "Take this out front," a robot of a husky build snapped, dropping a large metal box of rolls into his surprised arms, his elbows snapping up out of reflex.  "Hurry it up and don't spill or your pay will be deducted."  There was an odd clicking sound deep within the recesses of the robot's innards, and it reconsidered its words in comparison with the slightly irritated boy currently glaring at it with the intent to paralyze.  "Hurry it up," the robot corrected, "or I will inform the Head Dean."

                Jim sighed and traipsed after a small woman with flowing gossamer wings, her face naked of any features, a straight, bare slate that showed neither emotion nor any expression at all, and he narrowly avoided clocking his hip into a silver counter that jutted brashly into the open.  An itch was slowly forming at the back of his neck, ragged ends of his slashed hair bristling against the skin, and he rolled his shoulders, grimacing as he tried to rid the feeling from his body.  The woman sped up, turning and vanishing around a corner, and he swore, hurrying and catching the edge of the laden box as it threatened to spill out of his grip.  

                The noise level, changing with suddenness from the dull, flickering hum he had heard through the vents into a full-out assault of jabbering students, was raised quickly when he rounded the corner and he paused, seeing with greater perception than before the full implications of the school.  The mess hall was brimming with students, in uniforms of blue, red, black, and a few other tones in between to denote achieved ranks and whatnot, more students in the younger grades than the elder.  This was just a bit too large of a student body for his liking; Jim, despite a few qualities having been thankfully and perhaps grudgingly changed over the course of the late spring and summer, was still not overwhelmingly gifted in social situations that called for little things such as humility, deference, and age-related rank.  He felt a mild sense of doom inside, not wanting to admit that, having hailed from Montressor the small planet, he was only slightly overwhelmed by the massive population, and when overwhelmed, he tended to get defensive.

                "I seem to be staring at the same heinous collective of students," came Rubin's odd voice, a rumbling mixture of feminine and masculine inflections that granted it a genderless tone, "and yet somehow I cannot find the stupefying radiance your eyes are quite compelled to staring at.  If it does not irk you to perhaps move aside that others may pass, then by all means do shove."  The small humanoid ducked around him, clutching stubbornly in her thin hands a metal box of exact proportion to his own with some sort of mass-cooked eggs within it, and she walked stiffly to the robots in the front of the mess hall.  With a grunt, she dropped the box into the waiting cylindrical arms of one and it caught the object with aggravating ease, turning and whirring forward as Jim supposed he was meant to do the same.

                "How'd you," he gritted, the box being more awkward than heavy, and he managed to pass it on to the next irritated-looking mechanical creation, "manage to carry that?"  He winced, pulling back as the robot moved forward to impatiently wait next to the row of others closest to the students, and rubbed at his elbow, the corner having jabbed the sensitive skin exposed by his uniform.  "Crap," he muttered to the air before him, studying the just acquired red scrape along his sun-browned skin, "I hope that fades before Mom gets here."

                "It was remarkably simple, Jim," she replied with a near cruel droll to her voice, ignoring very easily his last remark.  "I merely locked the joints of my knees in place like so," she demonstrated with obnoxious ease, "and strode forward whilst maintaining an even, balanced grip under the box to keep from mistakenly lurching it out of my grasp.  It was a matter of symmetry and mathematical coordination, the likes of which are quick to learn."  There was a defined insult in her words and he stuck his tongue out at her back, finding a shameful satisfaction in the infantile victory as she had the back of her scarlet-locked head facing him.  

                Jim sighed, then, rolling his shoulders back, uncomfortable in the stiff hems of his unexpectedly enclosing uniform, and he scratched forcefully at the back of his neck, trying to rid himself of the entirely unwanted coarseness of bristled hair sweeping along the skin.  He winced, a fingernail catching along the stretch of neck he was hoping to cure, and drew his hand away, crossing his arms over his chest.  "Why're we waitin' here?" he asked bluntly, watching as the students slowly fell silent, each class noting the one above it shushing one another.  "Please tell me nobody's doing any announcements."

                "Silence," Rubin replied, annoyed.  "A few things are somewhat more important than whether or not you can toss in another sarcastic quip, and it might do us some good to see what the eating patterns are.  Besides," her voice adopted a tone that he would have thought a bit kinder, "I have attended a military preparatory school for the past ten years, and am thusly a bit more wise to how the chain of rank operates."

                "Oh, thanks," he shot back as her lips twitched up in an expression meant to resemble that of a smile, "that was so helpful I can't even remember what life was like before you could help.  Tell me, what're your secrets?  Did you kill anyone for them?"  He flashed her a grin when she gave him a hardly enthused look, every pound of cheeky obnoxiousness that was engrained into his very personality wrapped up into that smile in some subconscious habit of annoyance.  The robots hummed on the edge of his hearing as the third-class students gradually became aware that the juniors had drifted into a silence that was not quite reverent, and he ignored all three stately.

                "And how, pray tell, doth thee breath come the bittersweet light of dawn?" quipped the odd tri-eyed alien, black uniform insignificant with her swarthy skin.  "It strikes me as a miracle on par with raising the dead or the ilk."

                Jim snorted disparagingly.  "Breathing," he drawled, "how do I do it?  Well, first I use my nose--"

                "Silence," she said again, cutting him off as her voice dipped once again into a slightly rude monotone.  "Mum is very easily the word to be used in this sort of situation.  Research into a thing known as tact: it tends to be horrendously useful in everyday life."  She stiffened her back, taking a precautionary step back to the five foot entrance from the tunnel systems of the kitchen, and slapped her arms to her sides with an equal sternness, facing the robots, which were beginning to clack most fearsomely.

                "Stop talking like that," he muttered, mimicking her movements and keeping his arms crossed over his chest, wrinkling the be-damned tie.  "You're sounding way too much like my mom, and it's freaking me out."  A shrill burring came forth from the robots and one of his eyes widened sardonically as he studied the perfectly motionless silver creations, irritatedly reaching back once again to scratch at his neck and around the woven collar of his required sweater.  "Crazy noise," he suggested, touching a hand to his ear protectively.  "Supposed to happen or danger signal?"

                "This is an example of why we precisely should be grateful we are not eating on this morn," she answered calmly, as the robots ceased their high-pitched whine and settled for a static noise akin to that of a malfunctioning public address system gone haywire.  "As well," she continued without missing a beat, "as a show of how little our board of education truly cares about the state of robots.  It is very much a pity that many continue to believe robots are incapable of individual thought, and therefore are often ignored when in servitude positions."

                Before she could continue in her pleasant, conversational tone, one that suggested she was more interested with the debate she was opening in a clinical term than that of a partial view, and before Jim could rub tiredly at his eyes, a booming voice emanated as one from all of the ten plus robots.  "The student body," the voice started in a crackling sound, "will now eat."  Jim, made more aware of his achingly empty torso and the fact that he had last dined on mud, such as the case was, grimaced and shared his feelings with a scuffle of his foot over the floor and a low mutter.  "Before you may come forward to eat, though," interrupted the multi-broadcasted speaker, giving pause to the many excited, tired freshmen standing up from their sectored tables, "it should be duly noted that all third- and fourth-class students will be serving the upper classes before they are allotted their share of the leftovers.  Take care to sit on the edges of your seats!"  The voice cheerfully finished with, "Eat hearty, lads an' ladies!  First lunch isn't until two, and that leaves you eight hours!  Use your thirty minutes for breakfast wisely."

                Jim distinctly heard one of the robots groan, "Here comes the brutal agony," immediately following the obnoxious click of the broadcast flipping off, and he muffled a personal laugh at the unexpected words.  There was an uncomfortable wave of the freshmen glancing with something akin to horror at one another, having not been prepared for this sudden development, and then the fifth- and fourth-years proceeded to swarm down upon them.  

"Thank God I can't stay out of trouble," he remarked dutifully as the youngest two grades were turned out of their chairs and sent hurriedly over to the robots holding the breakfast foodstuffs.  He thought it incredibly amusing, but winced and scratched again where his uneven, bristling hair swept in crescent waves against the skin of his neck.

                And somehow, he found himself loving every horrible second of his admittedly short time spent thus far at the academy.  Granted, he was not particularly fond of waking at ungodly hours to spend an hour exercising, though he doubted he ever would, and he was incredibly hungry, but – he smiled, leaning against the wall.  Five months ago, the only thing he would have seen himself doing was community service in some form of punishment for a juvenile delinquent's prank or two.  Even having the chance to prove he was a damn good person, much less a halfway decent spacer, was something he was more than willing to suffer all sorts of ironic and cruel things for.

                Including, he thought with a sardonic laugh, Rubin asking him in a mildly irked voice, "What in the thrice-cursed Densadron hell are you so disgustingly pleased about?  Must I remind you that we are being punished?"  He merely laughed harder, and she smiled shortly, more of a weary grimace than an expression of amusement.

---

                Imperial History, Military I came first on his schedule, as yet another example of the universe's apparently undying sense of incredibly twisted humor.  Not only had Jim developed quite a record back home for falling asleep in each history class he had ever been enrolled in, he had also managed to fail spectacularly every test, quiz, worksheet, lecture, and the occasional polling of students.  So it was with a strong sense of crippling nausea and a general moodiness that he entered the antechamber that was the Military Histories room, pocketing his silent guide-light and holding the dog-eared tome Cardigan had hurled at his head when he went looking for the hand-me-downs after breakfast.  Until he stepped into the room he still felt some degree of hope, but once he saw what the large chamber's interior offered to him, the shred of hope screamed miserably and promptly died.

                In three words alone could he sum up his emotions at the time: _oh God help.  _Jim thought it sufficient and quick enough that maybe God would be able to grant him a miracle if He was so inclined at the moment, barring any assassination attempts on the Queen or another revolt from the happily nicknamed String of Dissatisfied Planets.  He closed his pale eyes as hard as he could, muttering a half-remembered prayer he could recite from habit but could never truly recall the words or rhythm of, and fumbled out of the wide doorway, shaggy and ill-kempt hair twisting lazily about under the air steadily pumping in the room.  

                The Military Histories chamber was the sort that many a youthful teacher's aide dreamed deep fantasies about working within: immense maps drawn with thick Caromian ink were nailed to the walls; immense holo-globes representing individual planets steadily, lazily twirled in continuous orbits around one another before they blinked and faded out to be replaced by new diagrams; heavy tomes were placed on nearly all surfaces to be seen, old books with faded covers and torn pages exposed to the immense globular lamps hanging from ceiling and walls; when he stepped on the floor, a spiderweb of river systems and detailed landscapes appeared underfoot, a to-scale-map of the academy's world of residence; and each of the stretching single-desks that were attached to each of the inclined rows formed a sort of ampi-theatre, with every one of the desks' sides carefully showing a mapped battle strategy of some sort.  Doppler, he believed with a grand conviction, would have himself buried in this room if the chance presented itself.

                Unfortunately for Jim, the same qualities that would have the family friend in a seizure of sheer joy could present a threat he had somehow not fully realized upon his acceptance at the prestigious academy.  For some horrid, unexplained reason he had blithely ignored that he would need to have a rudimentary knowledge of the required high school courses, and then what with his not having actually finished high school – and by a grudging _actually_ he meant he had recently foregone both his junior and senior years – he decided he was Screwed.  No simple matter of standard capitalization for him, his meaning and inevitable in-class agony could only be truly communicated to himself with a capital 's' and a self-deprecating burst of anger.

                Well at least it wasn't math, he figured as he claimed a spot in the fifth row up, trudging to the middle-most seat and plopping into it.  He immediately hunched over, dropping his book to the desk before him and doing his best to stare in a convincingly studious manner at the twenty-thousand page – or so it seemed with jaw-dropping width – tome already opened in front of him.  He paused, discovering an actual interest in the pages, seeing a large, heavily detailed oil painting of what looked like an emaciated Lupine leading a highly fatal charge against some particularly nasty Tuskrus forces.  Jim was not the galaxy's most patient person, nor was he famous for his ability to plan something out meticulously so much as halfway, but even he doubted he could ever get an incentive or pissed-off enough to try the same thing.

                It was while he was studying with a degree of morbid fascination the painting that the bells screwed into the walls rang into noisy and quite frankly annoying existence, and he glared pointlessly at the ornate brass curves as they fell into disapproving silence.  Flipping the pages with a careful slide of his palm under the right one, he was presented with a long, small-set text in a calligraphy style that had long since been dead in any form of social circles, be it education, wealthy, or handyman.  He allowed himself a second of peering curiously close to the pages and raised his body somewhat off his chair to lean his face close to the worn paper, before snorting and falling back, bored with trying to decipher something that had probably never been legible even when the style was popular.  

Falling back into his chair, he noted that the first three rows were filled with happily giggling and discoursing first-years, waving inked pens and fingers at one another in vibrant young adult communication.  The next two rows, fourth and fifth, were sparsely populated with the occasional serious-faced student vastly enraptured with his or her class book, and he realized with a doubled sense of ill-fated nausea that he stood out in an isolated manner in the fifth row, middle seat.  

"Crap," he muttered, thick brown eyebrows rising slowly with despair, "my plan's been thwarted."  The whole goal of choosing a row between the top and bottom, and then a middling chair, had been to avoid being spotted by the professor, blending indistinctly into a crowd of brightly conversing peers and doing his best not be noticed or called upon.  With this having failed and the bells having already screamed their furious, shrill warning to race to class, he was effectively stuck: if he tried to move to a new seat, he would be noticed by the professor currently entering the room, and if she noticed him in any way, he would stand out in her memory enough to be possibly called on.  This he wanted to pass by at all costs.

If he did not move, he had only the slimmest of meager chances at escaping with his dignity and grade intact.  _Oh God help, _he found himself thinking once again, slinking down in his chair as he fiddled fingertips along the edge of the text staring mindlessly at the ceiling above.

"Welcome!" shouted the professor, a delicate Mouse with a crop of thickly curled black hair tied into a simple bundle at the apex of her head.  She waited for the students to quiet somewhat, lifting a bit of faded red chalk and twitching her large, fan-like ears patiently as Jim nervously tried to pretend he was invisible.  "I'm Professor Danya Muldei, and you will call me Professor Muldei under all circumstances," she called in a voice that was surprisingly deep and loud for her species, her tone working as a buffer to her words.  "I'll be teaching basic military history, for those who don't know what you're doing here."  She smiled briefly.  "Except for the few who could afford the preparatory schools on the Prego moons," Professor Muldei lowered her head to a painfully thin being sitting directly below Jim, a slender male with pale orange scales and thick webbing around both ear and finger, "I'll bet you all happen to be expecting some sort of orientation on the first day.  Time to settle in with the rhythm, if you will."

Her ensuing cheerful smile did wonders for drastically worsening the stressed headache Jim was beginning to develop.

"We're going to take a wild leap directly into our books, lady-n-gents," she informed the class, earning her a wide array of gapes, gawks, and groans.  Turning to a small blackboard erected behind her massive, tidy desk, she quickly wrote a string of foreign characters that had little effect on Jim whatsoever, though he wrinkled his nose and frowned his eyebrows together as he puzzled the slightly familiar curves and dashes.  A surprised flare of remembrance came, then, as he recalled it as being one of the alien languages that had flashed in the door test the night preceding, and he thought it to mayhap be the fluid script of Tujin as she continued, "First off, we'll be looking at the Trans-Tujin War of the PEA.  That's Pre-Empire Age, for you ninnies that failed high school history."

Jim made a face.

"Before we start reading our books," she turned from the board, tossing the chalk to her desk and patting her small, furry paws together with a brilliant pearly smile, "does anyone know anything about the TTW, as we in the history biz like to call it?"  She glanced expectantly about the room, apparently not seeing Jim as he did his damnedest to wish himself invisible, and a sour expression passed over her dainty features that seemed to accompany her single eye twitch.  "Every year," she sighed, her ears contracting slightly and tilting downwards, "no one knows.  I have classes filled with seventeen- and eighteen-year olds who made it into one of the most selective military academies in the universe, and no one ever knows."

The young man with the immensely slight person and scales shyly raised his webbed hand, the lamp-light reflecting casually from his scales where they peeked out from the hem of his own black uniform.  "Miss Professor Muldei, ma'am?" he questioned in a quiet voice, one that rippled slightly like a pool of water that shifted just so under a grumbling rain storm beginning to erupt.  "I sort of know a little about the war, ma'am."

"I don't doubt that, Mister Terre," she smiled, though it looked marginally more tired than her previous ones.  "You are a Tujin, after all, and I'd be horrified if you didn't know at least something about it.  It was your genus involved in it, after all.  However," Professor Muldei continued, "I want to know that maybe just one person here other than a Tujin can make even a guess."  She looked glumly about the room, resting a tiny paw on her desk and appearing as though her entire soul had just gained thirteen unlucky pounds as the white ruffle of her undershirt quivered with her disappointed breath.  "Why did it start?  What were the factions?  Historical effect?  Anyone?  I'm prodding here, the least you can do is respond."

As the lanky Tujin, apparently Terre by name, sighed and leaned forward to forlornly twist a finger over the cover of his shiny new textbook – as opposed to Jim's worn, scratched one – the boy sitting one row above him, scratching with a glower at his irritated neck, slowly paused.  God had listened, he thought with amazement and a sarcastic twitch of his lips in an almost smug, but fortunately grateful, fashion; how else could it be that the one week he had dug his heels in at Benbow High would have been about the Trans-Tujin War?  Granted, he could remember only fuzzy bits, and not very many fuzzy bits at that, but if he could pretend he knew what he was doing, there was the possibility he might be secured from trying to prove his historical mettle in class for a few days.

"Religion," he stated in a bored voice, rifling through the pages of the ancient book that had cheerfully revealed war paintings of dubious military idiocy.  "The," he hesitated, and then shrugging finished, "TTW was started because of religion."

Terre dropped his head back curiously, solid dark green eyes blinking a slotted silver pupil with a startled interest in the student who had spoken up, and a hesitant expression of delight blossomed on Professor Muldei's face.  "Precisely!" she cried, clapping her paws together as the young men and women of varying species in the front row glanced at one another.  "Religious differences were the root cause of the Trans-Tujin War!  When Shorim'ni lu ti'Po de Moli of the Nebulan offshoot colony returned to Hjuy, he introduced the first monotheist religion on the Tujin homeworld."  She was clearly relishing her sudden encouragement that hope still existed for the young individuals who would eventually grow to lead the Empire, and strode in quick steps to one of the holo-globes.  

"Of course, at the time," she beamed, clicking a button and causing the entire string of countless globes to shimmer and warp into a giant diagram of a flattened, two-dimensional galaxy, "the Tujin had created their own empire in their solar system and the few systems closest.  Travel beyond that and into surrounding galaxies wouldn't show up for a few more centuries, and not in the Tujin's galaxy, so they had limited contact with any other cultures.  When Moli came home, converted to the single-deity religion the Nebulan's Tujin species believed in, the rest of the Tujin genus was horrified."

Casually flipping through the painting book once again, thankful and relieved that his potential dissection in front of the class was ended, Jim froze his fingers, having found a detailed painting replicate that needed to be folded out much as a poster would from the book.  "After all," he could hear Professor Muldei saying with great energy, her voice and manner keeping the rest of the class in thrall though her words would usually turn them away, "the Tujin are traditionally polytheists. 

"They have a string of gods and goddesses that aren't based on nature, but on parts of the personality.  Joy, anger, rage - they even have a god for schizophrenia, but he isn't well-known.  That the Nebulans were convinced one god existed was weird enough, but that they dared share it with a governor the Emperor had assigned?  Heresy, people.  They used to burn you and skin you alive for that sort of thing."

The painting was gorgeously done, a piece of oil-work that showed minute detail in every speck of paint and had a sweeping, airy feel to it, as though the artist had sought to imprison the gently breathing moments of light that passed him or her by.  Jim frowned, brushing his fingertips along the aged paper surface, trying to capture the thought this replication gave to him.  It brought to eyes the intricacies of some metalwork, deep in the bowls of a mechanism that was somehow bright, and he could nearly grasp what it was he could almost touch his mind against.  For a moment, he wondered if he was looking at some painting of the Treasure Planet's mechanical entrails, but the designs and overall aesthetic of the metal painted was too ornate, too delicately done.  He still wanted stubbornly to know what it was, and glancing with squinting eyes at the opposite page with its cryptic lettering and indecipherable script proved to be nothing more than a waste.

"Does anyone know that kid's name?" Professor Muldei asked, the sort of question that innocuously drew attention to it from the person being addressed, in a cosmic constant that made horribly little sense.  "Wait, I know your face," she interrupted herself with a wave of her hand, her round ears looking considerably perkier than before.  "Jim Hawkins, right?  'Melia's cabin boy on her last voyage?  Wonderful!  You're quite a hero to my son, you know?"  She smiled, a kind one that somehow managed to preserve her professional aura, and she continued, "Once we get to the Flint section in the second semester, I'd like if you could share a little on the voyage."

                She had no need to explain what, exactly, she meant by her words, and he smiled, feeling a sense of pride at the intellectually pleased look on her face; for some reason he was reminded of his mother, in a distant way, at the look that touched her small, pointed features.

                "Anyway!" she declared, lifting into her dainty paw a small pointer of but an inch in length, and she tapped it once on her palm, causing a brilliant stream of narrow blue laser light to pour from its mouth.  "Two weeks after Moli's return to Hjuy, a few of his Nebulan emissaries acted in self-defense at a political meeting when a bishop under the church of Arepocht – remember that lesser god of schizophrenia? – attacked one of them with, according to legend, a rather large butter-knife…"

---

                "Professor Muldei," Jim approached once the bells had exploded cruelly again, "can I ask you a question?"  He asked it in a neutral tone, wary of sounding too curious or interested, and kept his worn textbook tucked safely under his elbow, as he was trying to keep from dropping the heavy tome that he had found himself intrigued with during the class.  If she, for whatever reason, said no, he could always 'borrow' it for a few days and return it no worse for the wear.  "Just want to ask if I can borrow this."  Had the book been a few hundred pounds lighter, he might have glibly lifted it nonchalantly with one hand and smiled the charming smile his mother swore would have him deeply in trouble whenever he began dating.

                "Oh, that's an old one, isn't it," she commented with an arched eyebrow, clipping tiny claws over the panel of the holo-globe controls, switching it back to the preprogrammed cycle of assorted planets.  "Walter Watson's _Coming Forth From The Forefathers.  _Incredibly difficult to read, considering the language he used has been dead for the past two hundred years."  She grinned, a sort of cheeky expression that caught him off guard with the strange likeness of it to his own somewhat irritating smiles of obnoxious challenge.  "I have a translation holo somewhere in here," she continued, crossing her thin arms over her pale green waistcoat, "so if you can come by during your dormitory's lunch, I'll be able to give you the holo."

                He grinned right back, copping off a cheap, cocky salute and earning a highly disappointed look from the professor that he completely missed as he hurried into the hall, digging out his guide-light miraculously and letting it lead him innocently to his Beginner's Physics and Chemistry class.

                "I'm forty-five," Professor Muldei muttered to herself, as the first of the next batch began trickling in.  "You'd think after now I might be able to get some sort of respect.  Maybe I'm not being strict enough?"  She smiled at a nervously shuffling first-year and gently motioned for the young man to move to a seat in the front row where she could make sure he would adapt well enough.

---

                Jim managed to drag himself out of physical science, followed by some kind of math class he had thought was trig but had involved mathematics he had never known existed, and clambered out of an alabaster door in one piece.  He eyed his guide-light, considering whether or not he could technically get away with crushing it and pretending it had malfunctioned, making it thus that he could not conceivably go to the rest of his classes if he did not know the way.  His sense of morals, stubborn determination to be the best damn spacer the academy had ever seen, and the love for mechanics of any sort that he held deep within his soul prevented him from doing so.  "You're lucky," he dourly informed the ball of metallic light that led him through the heated, pressing crowd to Vehicle Design and Building, "that my one true love is engineering.  Be grateful."

                He ducked under a gangly Macriki currently trying to engage the wall in a form of sport involving a rubber ball and doubtlessly a moment of hooky, and he overshot the door the guide-light had patiently waited in front of.  Skidding, trying to stop his hurried walking momentum and turn at the same time, he wobbled pathetically and managed to scuffle across the slippery floor in his new boots.  He was immensely thankful that the math class – whatever it was, and he hoped like hell he would manage to figure it out before a major exam of any kind – had been near enough to his dorm that he could pop in and drop the tome in, though it had made him late for aforementioned math class.  Odds were if he was still carrying the obscenely heavy thing, his face would be one with the tiles at the moment.

                A particularly dark tunnel awaited him when he went through the door, hunching over as his new boots rubbed over the suddenly scoured floor he was walking across.  The ceiling was gradually slanting lower as he walked, crushing down slightly in a very inhibiting way, and he lifted a hand to pin against the wall, keeping his balance in a cautious way as he trudged after the flickering atomic white of the guide-light.  It blinked and dodged up to another set of doors, a black substance dripping along the frame in a most unpleasant manner, and he touched two fingers to the thick liquid, curious and somewhat derailed for the time being.  The texture was oily and all together slick, the smell a heady sort of familiarity, and he flicked it off his fingers as best he could, using his other hand to push through to the other side of the door.

                A second courtyard faced him, one that was a great deal more artistic than the one involving morning exercises, with large gazebos and a multitude of platforms and swooping ivory designs, and the large expanse of grass and white constructs was cradled between the Math-and-Histories building as well as the Shop.  Jim paused, kneeling slightly to rub his fingers hard in the remarkably wet grass and rid himself of the still-clinging droplets of motor oil, and grabbed the fading metal sphere before it could plummet into a spot of mud near his knee.  Pocketing it, he stood and brushed his knees out of habit, taking a step toward the shop building and noticing a large sign that had been hastily nailed over the broad doors granting entrance to it, drawing the sphere back out of his pocket as he read the sign.

                Jiuml'Kii toauw ghVaurII bushao-vinotee, it read simplistically in Cal'lr, and directly below it was the standard Empirical language, _Renovating.  A-C to Courtyard 1, D to Courtyard 2, E-G to Courtyard 3.  Others cancelled._  

                "I'm in Class D, right?" he thought to ask the guide-light in his palm, fingers curling over it in a cage to keep it from rolling pointedly out of his grip.  "Cripes," he swore under his breath, stabbing it back into his pocket as he shifted his weight and tried to make a decision.  "Of course I'd leave my schedule back in the room, 'cause I'm obviously too stupid to think I'd need it."  He smacked the heel of his palm dramatically to his head, muttering a few choice words he had picked up from Birdbrain Mary, and finally shrugged for his own benefit.  If he missed it, he missed it, and he'd have to find a way to make up for it later, but as for now he doubted there was anything he could do if he was in the wrong place.

                He traipsed quickly over the spongy ground, a surprising wetness considering the heat the trio of – admittedly small – suns was cheerfully presenting to the world that held a good chunk of the Royal Navy Academy on board, and jogged up the few carefully hewn steps to the nearest gazebo.  Sliding easily onto one of the pearled benches, he ran a hand through his shortened hair and picked at his tie, the knot loosening a bit more over the gradual day and proving to be an annoyance much as the black sweater was.  He scuffled his boots over the tiles under the long table, folding his arms in front of him and resting his face in the cradle it formed, steadfastly ignoring the ache in his stomach where food would have been if he had eaten breakfast.  

                Jim had nearly drifted into an unexpected, cloying summer when a noisy explosion of resonating sound smacked the table directly against his ear, giving him good reason to snap up and tense his muscles in basic aggressive defense.  "What?" he snapped off, peevish, and rubbed a hand quickly over his face in waking ritual.  He opted to not say anything else, instead letting his smoldering glare deliver the gist of his current feelings for the rest of sentient life in the universe.

                "Excuse me, troll, didn't mean to ruin _your_ life," an older voice snapped right back, in a droll tone that lilted in a snobbish manner and served to tighten the irritated kink between Jim's shoulders.  A tall third-year of the same species as Terre – derived straight from the Tujin genus – and featuring the same orange scales and forest green eyes, all but sneered at him, looking as though spitting on him might just be a waste of saliva.  "But, you know, then again, I'm the lieutenant-rank here," she continued, nearly nonexistent eyebrows tilting threateningly as her short red hair and red lips began to shift colors to a muted blue, "and you're the lowly troll-faced freshman, so no loss there."

                "Are you trying to make a point or something?" Jim said, biting the side of his tongue before he managed to say something he knew he would regret in terms of his mother inevitably finding out.  He failed resoundingly at his attempts to keep his tongue and mind under reasonable control.  "I sat here first," he continued, sky-colored eyes narrowing to wrinkle angrily, "and I'm not moving.  Why should I?"

                "Because," the upperclassman returned in a slowly cruel drawl, adopting a saccharine expression that belied her harsh tone, "I'm the rich junior and you're the poor newbie.  You aren't even sixteen, are you?"  She smiled condescendingly, the icy blue colors done in melting her hair and lip color to change, and motioned for several other girls, as well as the occasional man, from her same age group to claim the remaining spots on the two long benches.  "Now, if I haven't been too clear, little troll," her expression turned ugly, the fanned webbing around her sharp ears twitching in silent threat, "_move_."

                Jim grinned in a fashion that was just as ill-suited as her earlier sweet look.  "No," he answered in a light tone and leaning slightly over his elbow as he smiled confident challenge at the older students.  "I can't think of any reason why I should.  So shut up and go away."  His lips curved in such a way as to irritate most everyone he knew, the same sort of smile that had earned him many a pop on the back of his head and quite a few curse-spattered death threats from his peers back home.

                A murderous cloud passed over her marine features, a dark swelling that ominously forebode of the same kind of harsh promise of death, loss of blood, and pain, not necessarily in that order, and she snapped her crystal-webbed fingers in the time old tradition of a popular social clique boss.  "Sit down," she said coldly out of the corner of her mouth to what he assumed were her groupies, such as the case may be.  "And you, what makes you think you can get away with ordering me around?  Do you have any idea who exactly I am?"

                He leaned forward, asking in a mockingly breathless voice, "Why would I care?"

                "I am Ra'liton lu ma'Ri de Himu!" she snapped, the shades of her lips and hair darkening into a whipped frenzy of oceanic dark blue, a faint mist of green pervading through.  "I own this academy and you are going to move!"

                She, he realized as he rolled his lips in to keep from laughing in her face, was throwing a tantrum.  As it was, he ducked his head, still insistently shaggy brown locks falling in quiet sheaths to hide his closing eyes as he let one muffled snicker free, and he was quite unable to still his shoulders from quivering with the internalized amusement.  Promptly, he was shoved with an unknown strength in his shoulder, causing him to snap his eyes open and windmill somewhat, nearly toppling off the bench.  "Hey!" he cried, in childish response as he glared at her.

                "What?  Like I pushed you," she snorted, smirking as he straightened and jerked at his sleeves to straighten them out.  "But get the hint anyway, troll, and pick your sorry butt off this bench and go sit with the other poor trashlings."  She smiled a cool, icy look of sadistic meanness, the dark red quartz of her uniform suddenly looking nauseatingly hideous to him and somehow managing to taint his perception of the same lieutenant uniform Mister Arrow had sported.

                "Make – me," he gritted, wanting more than anything to be able to kill her with a glance.  Her jab at money had stung, though he had no idea where she could have guessed how hard life had been for the Hawkins family, and it only served to further cement his decision that he did not like her very much at all.  Himu's expression told him succinctly she wished looks could kill as much as he did, but for a slightly different reason.

                "Good midday, students," a light masculine voice interrupted as a well-dressed Weasel marched resolutely into the courtyard, lapels of his ruddy brown overcoat flapping in the mild wind.  He smiled in an absent, kindly fashion at them all, the bundle of his scarf simply hanging limply around his neck, and whipped off his overcoat and then the scarf, glancing congenially at the large slew of students spilled onto the grass and in the several gazebos closest to the space he had chosen as his makeshift desk.  "I'm Professor Holiban, Xats being first, and I'll be working with yall herein out.  Want to get started right off?"

---

Notes:  Danya Muldei is a double-purpose pun – it's actually derive from Dana (as in Dana Scully) and Mulder (as in Fox Mulder) from _'The X-Files.'_  Though I do ship MSR (Mulder-Scully Romance), it's more of a jab at my best friend's (no longer existent) inability to say Mulder and Scully correctly: to Becky, for quite a few months, it was Moldy and Sculler.  It's all in good spirits, Beckna-girlie!  ;]

Arepocht was formed from two different god names: Ares, the Greek god of war (Mars in Roman mythos), and Huitzilopochti, the Aztec sun-god.  

Nine pages and I still haven't finished the first day of Jim's school life.  Urf.  0o;

Thanks go out to _Tmyres77_ (glad you liked the A/D stuff!  I had fun writing it), _JuuChanStar _(I haven't read your S/S fic yet, though I'm planning to ^^), and _SolarSurfer _(I know…*sheepish look*  I'm going to pull through and change the eye color stuff…I thought they were green for some reason   0o).  Very appreciated, all.

Palla.  (Reminding ya'll that feedback gives me wings!)


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